THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


IMPRESSIONS  OF  AMERICAN 
EDUCATION  IN  1908 


By  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

ENGLISH    HIGH    SCHOOLS 
FOR   GIRLS 

THEIR  AIMS,  ORGANISATION  AND  MANAGEMENT 
Crown  8vo,  48.  6d. 


LONGMANS.    GREEN    AND    CO. 

39  PATERNOSTER  Row,  LONDON 
NEW  YORK,  BOMBAY  AND  CALCUTTA 


IMPRESSIONS  OF 

AMERICAN   EDUCATION 

IN  1908 


BY 

SARA  A.  BURSTALL,  M.A. 

HEAD  MISTRESS,  MANCHESTER  HIGH  SCHOOL  FOR  GIRLS 

AND  LECTURER  IN  EDUCATION  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  MANCHESTER 

MEMBER  OP  THE  MANCHESTER  CITY  COUNCIL  EDUCATION  COMMITTEE 

SOMETIME  SCHOLAR  OF  OIRTON  COLLEGE,  CAMBRIDGE 

AUTHOR  OF  "ENGLISH  HIGH  SCHOOLS  FOR  GIRLS" 


"  Methinks  I  see  in  my  mind  a  noble  and  puissant  nation  .  .  . 
entering  the  glorious  ways  of  truth  .  .  ." 

Areofagitica. 


LONGMANS,     GREEN     AND    CO. 

39  PATERNOSTER  ROW,  LONDON 

NEW  YORK,  BOMBAY,  AND  CALCUTTA 

1909 


TO 

Miss  MARGARET   GASKELL 

AND 

SIR  EDWARD   DONNER 

POUNDERS   AND   GOVERNORS   OP   THE    MANCHESTER   HIGH   SCHOOL 
SINCE   ITS   BBGINNINQ    IN    1873 


824G85 


PREFACE. 

THESE  personal  impressions  are  not  put  forth  with- 
out some  diffidence,  even  some  fear :  they  must 
needs  be  so  inadequate  to  their  subject.  But  they 
have  at  least  the  merit  of  sincerity,  of  affectionate 
respect  and  admiration  for  the  great  nation  whose 
achievements  and  whose  power  England  regards 
with  that  pride  of  family  which  makes  the  actions  of 
all  English-speaking  peoples  matter  of  high  moment 
to  ourselves.  We  must  needs  understand  their 
ways  ;  if  we  cannot  solve  our  problems  alone,  we  turn 
to  their  solutions  as  for  us  the  most  suggestive. 

For  the  opportunity  of  making  these  studies  I 
would  thank  most  heartily  the  Governors  of  the 
Manchester  High  School  who  gave  me  last  winter 
a  term's  leave  of  absence ;  I  am  also  very  grateful 
to  Sir  William  Mather,  LL.D.,  and  to  Dr.  Parkin 
of  the  Rhodes  Trust,  for  their  valuable  advice  arid 
help  in  arranging  my  tour.  To  Professor  Michael 
E.  Sadler  of  our  own  Manchester  University  I  owe 
more  than  I  can  well  express  for  the  guidance  and 
opportunities  he  has  given  me  throughout  the  whole 


viii  Preface 

work,  in  direction,  in  letters  of  introduction,  and  in 
the  planning  of  the  chapters  following.  I  have  to 
thank  Mr.  Thiselton  Mark,  also  of  our  University, 
for  suggestive  criticism. 

Most  of  all  am  I  grateful  to  those  many  teachers 
in  America  itself  who  showed  me  so  much,  and 
whose  unfailing  sympathy,  co-operation,  and  hospi- 
tality alone  made  it  possible  for  me  to  learn  what 
little  I  have  gathered.  There  is  indeed  a  brother- 
hood in  our  profession,  like  the  time-honoured 
brotherhood  of  arms.  I  cannot  name  individually 
all  to  whom  I  am  indebted,  but  to  some  of  the 
distinguished  leaders  of  American  education  who 
gave  me  of  their  precious  time  and  thought  I  would 
pay  an  individual  tribute  to  President  Van  Hise 
and  other  officials  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  ; 
Dr.  Woodward  of  St.  Louis ;  Commissioner  E.  E. 
Brown  of  the  Bureau  of  Education,  Washington  ; 
Dr.  James  Macalister,  Philadelphia  ;  President  Eliot 
of  Harvard ;  Mr.  James  P.  Munroe  of  the  Mass. 
I  nstitute  of  Technology,  Boston ;  and  to  President 
Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  and  his  colleagues  in 
Teachers'  College,  of  Columbia  University,  New 
York.  If  there  be  any  truth  in  the  conclusions  I 
seek  to  express  in  the  following  pages,  it  is  in  great 
measure  due  to  what  I  learnt  from  such  as  these. 

MANCHESTER  HIGH  SCHOOL, 
November,   1908. 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

GENERAL  INTRODUCTION i 

Difficulty  of  the  study — Contrasts  of  different  areas — Uniformity 
of  America — Plan  of  study — American  belief  in  education — 
Outline  of  system — Their  meaning  of"  private" — Institutions, 
and  their  relation  to  one  another ;  elementary,  secondary  and 
higher — Contrasts  of  American  and  English  education — 
Merits  of  the  American  system — Merits  of  the  English  system. 


CHAPTER  I. 

AMERICAN  HIGH  SCHOOLS 46 

Definition — Origin — Different  types — Systems  of  Boston,  New 
York,  Washington,  St.  Louis — Democratic  influence — In- 
ternal organisation — Buildings  and  equipment — Curriculum — 
Method — A  day  in  an  American  High  School — Social  life. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PRIVATE  SCHOOLS    .  69 

Types — Fees — Causes  of  success — Schools  for  the  rich — The  farm 
school — Girls'  boarding-schools — Proprietary  and  endowed 
schools — University  elementary  and  high  schools,  Chicago 
— The  Horace  Mann  Schools  of  Columbia  University,  New 
York. 


x  Table  of  Contents 

CHAPTER  III. 

FAGl 

COLLEGES  AND  UNIVERSITIES 95 

General  sketch — Types — Degree  course — Electives — Group  system 
— Social  life — Greatness — Relation  to  secondary  schools — 
Accrediting  v.  examination — How  accrediting  is  worked  in 
the  West :  its  failings  and  merits — Admission  on  certificate — 
Admission  requirements — Harvard,  Bryn  Mawr — The  Car- 
negie Foundation  and  its  work — The  College  Entrance  Exami- 
nation Board — Description  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  at 
Madison  and  of  Columbia,  New  York. 


CHAPTER  TV. 
METHODS  OF  TEACHING 156 

The  recitation  method :  its  merits  and  defects— Laboratory  work 
— Self-organised  group  work. 

CHAPTER  V. 
TH«  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY  IN  SCHOOLS  AND  COLLEGES      .        .    ija 

Extent  of  this  in  America — Coarse  in  elementary  education — 
High  school  scheme  for  four  years  or  less — English  history — 
Use  of  libraries  —  Commercial  high  school  —  History  at 
Harvard,  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  at  Vassar.  etc. — In 
Technical  Institutes — Post-graduate  work — American  views 
on  the  teaching  of  history — Result, 

CHAPTER  VI. 

HOME  ECONOMICS 199 

Domestic  Science  and  Art  for  women  and  girls  in  American 
colleges  and  schools — Position  of  subject  in  America  and 
England  compared — Definition  of  terms  used — Genesis  of 
movement  in  America — Courses  of  study  at  college — Chicago, 
Columbia,  Simmons  College,  Boston — Work  in  High  Schools, 
St.  Louis — Brookline  elementary  schools — The  Drexel  In- 
stitute, Philadelphia — Pratt  Institute,  Brooklyn — Institutional 
Housekeeping. 


Table  of  Contents  xi 


CHAPTER  VII. 

PAGE 

COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION— MORE  PARTICULARLY  FOR  GIRLS  .        .    220 

History  of  subject  in  America — Types  of  schools — Difference  in  the 
commercial  education  of  boys  and  of  girls — Degree  course  at 
Simmons  College — The  Drexel  Institute — The  Commercial 
High  School :  its  course  and  equipment — Methods  of  teaching 
commercial  subjects — Some  account  of  schools  at  St.  Louis, 
Washington,  Philadelphia,  Boston. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 
INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION — ESPECIALLY  FOR  GIRLS    ....     248 

A  movement  of  to-day  in  Massachusetts — Its  causes — The  "  wasted 
years,"  fourteen  to  sixteen — Trade  Schools  for  Girls  in  New 
York  and  Boston — Reform  of  education  by  introduction  of 
training  for  industries. 

CHAPTER  IX. 
THE  PLACE  OF  WOMEN  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION         .        .        .     258 

Large  opportunities  —  Co-education  —  Reaction  against  it  in 
colleges — President  Van  Hise's  views — Women  teachers  in 
elementary  and  secondary  schools  and  in  colleges  —  Inferior 
position  of  American  women  in  administration — Causes  for 
this — The  Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae. 

CONCLUSION 284 

America  and  England  each  self-critical  to-day — Warnings  to  Eng- 
land from  American  system — Suggestions  of  improvements  in 
devices  of  school  equipment  and  organisation — Accrediting — 
Excellencies  of  spirit  in  America — The  new  Universities — 
American  belief  in  education. 


xii  Table  of  Contents 

APPENDIX. 

PAGE 

1.  Questionnaire  of  the  National  Education  Association  re  High 

Schools,  1907 305 

2.  Course  of  Study,  Philadelphia  High  School  for  Girls    .        .        .    308 

3.  Time  Tables  of  the  Horace  Mann  Elementary  Schools,  New  York    309 

4  and  5.  Forms  of  Report  for  inspected  and  accredited  High  Schools, 

North  Central  Association 312 

6.  Examination  papers  in  History  and  English,  College  Entrance 

Examination  Board,  and  Mass.  Institute  of  Technology        .    318 

7.  Some  Statistics 324 


GENERAL  INTRODUCTION. 

Education  is  the  key  of  the  future. — CHAS.  W.  ELIOT. 

THERE  is  no  country  in  the  world  so  helpful  to  a  student 
or  worker  in  English  education  as  is  America ;  no  country 
where,  for  most  of  us  English  teachers,  a  period  of  observa- 
tion and  of  investigation  may  so  profitably  and  pleasantly 
be  spent,  as  in  that  wonderful,  brilliant,  wealthy  and  wel- 
coming land  across  the  Atlantic  whose  ways  and  whose 
history  are  so  like,  and  yet  so  unlike,  our  own.  The 
common  language  is  as  a  veil  that,  while  it  reveals  much 
resembling  our  own  system,  obscures  profound  differences 
of  plan  and  principle,  of  form  and  feeling.  The  common 
origin  of  laws  and  institutions,  of  social  custom  and  schol- 
astic tradition,  has  not  entailed  a  likeness  in  educational 
development ;  nay,  rather  has  the  course  of  their  educational 
evolution  been  extraordinarily  different  from  ours,  in- 
fluenced by  the  ideas  and  the  methods  of  alien  countries, 
as  well  as  by  the  needs  of  a  different  social  order.  Further- 
more, the  state  of  things  to-day,  while  it  presents,  in  school 
or  college,  superficial  resemblances  in  phraseology  and 
phenomena,  is  yet  deeply  separated  in  its  aims  and  its 
methods,  its  dangers  and  its  excellencies  from  ours. 

Yet  in  America  the  same  problems  are  to  be  found  as 
those  with  which  we  have  to  grapple  here  in  England, 
whether  as  teachers  or  administrators;  these  problems, 
however,  assume  other  forms,  and  are  called  by  other  names. 
Again,  though  the  American  man  and  the  American 
woman,  not  to  say  the  American  boy  and  the  American 

i 


2      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

girl,  are  quite  unlike  the  corresponding  English  varieties, 
yet  there  is  a  certain  common  element — be  it  racial  or  not 
— which  to  a  sympathetic  English  observer  makes  their 
educational  systems  and  devices  abound  in  illuminating  and 
pregnant  suggestion. 

Thus  is  it  that  American  education  is  to  a  teacher  the 
most  fascinating  and  difficult  of  professional  studies  ;  in- 
spiring and  provocative  by  its  confidence,  its  stimulus,  and 
its  apparent  ease ;  evasive  and  elusive  when  one  seeks 
to  come  to  grips  with  it ;  full  of  ideas,  warnings,  experi- 
ments ;  brilliant  yet  disappointing ;  practical  yet  academic ; 
fitted  to  worldly  needs,  yet  indwelt  by  a  living  faith  in 
learning ;  elaborate  and  organised,  yet  uniform  and  simple 
where  English  education  is  most  varied  and  complex ; 
related  to  national  life,  expressive  of  national  ideas  as  all 
education  must  be,  yet  with  its  officers  and  exponents  set 
apart  like  a  priestly  caste,  so  that  what  is  true  of  them 
is  not  true  of  Americans  generally ;  presenting  paradoxes 
and  enigmas  at  every  turn :  it  becomes  more  and  more 
difficult  to  understand  and  elucidate  the  more  it  is  studied 
and  explored. 

Nevertheless  the  student  is  impelled  to  formulate  the 
impressions  which  his  experiences  have  left  on  the  mind  ; 
to  develop  the  mental  photographic  record  that  the 
passing  days  and  hours  have  printed  on  the  sensitive 
psychic  surface  unrolled  daily  and  hourly  in  visits  and 
interviews,  in  discussion  and  observation.  Such  pictures 
must  be  incomplete  and  partial,  perhaps  even  distorted 
and  confused.  The  lens  of  no  man's  mind  is  achromatic  ; 
to  few  is  given  the  dry  light  that  Bacon  desired ;  to  still 
fewer  the  power  to  develop  and  fix  correctly  and  accurately 
the  images  and  records  the  past  has  made.  The  memo- 
randa the  traveller's  kodak  has  retained  are  a  poor  sub- 
stitute for  the  majesty  of  Niagara  or  the  splendour  of  the 
Hudson  Valley  at  sunset ;  but  we  take  them,  and  we  keep 


General  Introduction  3 

them,  poor  though  they  be,  if  only  as  a  memory  and  an 
indication  of  distant  beauty  and  joy. 

One  might  think  that  the  difficulty  of  this  problem,  the 
study  of  American  education,  would  be  largely  increased 
through  the  enormous  size  of  the  country,  its  contrasts  of 
climate,  settlers,  social  conditions,  even  of  laws  and  beliefs. 
Here  is  a  vast  population  of  eighty  millions,  heterogeneous 
in  race  and  origin,  spread  over  sixty  degrees  of  longitude 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  occupying  regions 
varying  in  climate  and  productions  through  a  wide  range 
of  types,  from  the  tropical  luxuriance  of  New  Orleans  to 
the  northern  pine  forests  of  Maine  or  Oregon.  But  this 
physical  amplitude  and  geographic  variety  in  man  and  his 
environment  do  not  add  as  much  as  one  might  expect  to 
the  difficulties  of  the  educational  student  First,  it  must  be 
said  that  many  districts,  though,  considering  their  condi- 
tions they  do  much  for  their  schools  and  even  for  their 
colleges,  do  not  present  to  the  English  observer  material 
for  study  and  inquiry  of  a  very  valuable  or  inspiring  kind. 
Americans  themselves  would  admit  that  the  more  typical^ 
and  helpful  areas  to  the  student  are  the  Eastern  States 
from  Massachusetts  to  Maryland,  the  great  Middle  West 
from  the  Alleghanies  to  the  Missouri,  which  centres  com- 
mercially in  Chicago,  and  the  Californian  slope.  In  these 
areas  a  student  may  learn  all  that  is  most  significant, 
true  and  admirable  in  the  American  educational  system.  ' 
Some  would  even  say  that  Massachusetts,  New  York, 
Philadelphia,  with  some  study  of  the  Ohio  region,  Michigan, 
Wisconsin,  Minnesota,  the  Chicago  sphere  of  influence,  and 
St.  Louis  would  suffice.  The  Middle  West  is  said  tobex 
the  real  America  of  the  future  ;  there  it  is  that  the  State  uni- 
versity, the  public  co-educational  high  school,  the  accredit- 
ing system,  and,  socially,  homogeneity  of  classes  and  ideals 
are  the  characteristic  phenomena.  There,  too,  the  European 
influences  which  affect  the  Eastern  cities  do  not  penetrate. 

I  * 


4      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

The  East,  however,  still  preserves  its  intellectual  leader- 
ship; the  influence  of  New  England,  so  deep  and  far- 
reaching  in  the  education  of  the  past,  still  continues,  while 
New  York  City  challenges  Boston's  claim  to  be  the  in- 
tellectual focus  of  national  life,  especially  since  the  recent 
development  of  Columbia  University,  and  the  concentration 
of  much  of  the  first  literary  and  artistic  ability  in  America 
in  this  her  greatest  centre  of  population. 

It  was  once  said  that  the  United  States  had  no  capital, 
such  as  London  or  Paris.  But  under  modern  conditions 
New  York  is  assuming  something  of  the  characteristics  of 
both  these  European  centres ;  but  with  a  mien  and  air,  a 
repellent  fascination,  a  vivid  yet  devouring  splendour  that 
are  all  her  own.  There  is  no  city  in  the  world  like  her ; 
there  is  perhaps  none  where  the  ways  of  wisdom  and  of 
death  run  so  closely  side  by  side.  Uptown,  the  great 
university,  rising  in  the  heights  above  the  river,  is  a 
symbol  of  thought  and  devotion,  of  scholarship  and  of 
service,  of  whatsoever  things  are  honest,  pure,  just  and 
lovely ;  but,  like  some  strange  sea  creature  risen  from  the 
ocean  at  her  gates,  the  city  has  a  double  nature,  and  ends 
in  vulgar  horror  and  degradation. 

Chicago,  again,  challenges  the  leadership  of  New  York 
in  commerce,  art  and  education;  while  in  some  senses 
not  an  American  city  at  all,  she  is  in  others  typical  of  the 
new  social  movements  in  the  Middle  West. 

Both  cities  are  intense  foci  of  sociological  thought  and 
action,  generated  there  to  meet  the  intensity  of  their  social 
dangers.  It  is  profoundly  significant  that  the  Western 
city  should  also  be  the  seat  of  a  great  university — a  uni- 
versity not  yet  twenty  years  old,  but  already  ranking  beside 
Columbia  and  Jena  as  a  centre  of  educational  initiative 
and  power. 

But  whatever  cities  or  states  the  English  teacher  may 
study  he  cannot  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the  extraordinary 


General  Introduction  5 

uniformity  which  is  so  marked  and  astonishing  a  feature 
in  American  life — a  uniformity  which  much  simplifies  his 
work.  There  is,  for  example,  more  uniformity  in  the  high 
school  history  course  of  study,  over  an  area  from  Minnea- 
polis to  Boston,  and  from  Washington  to  St.  Louis  (which 
takes  two  days  and  nights  to  cross  by  train),  than  in  the 
half-dozen  secondary  schools  in  the  one  city  of  Manchester. 
This  is  not  a  matter  of  law ;  it  is  a  matter  of  common  con- 
sent, of  the  voluntary  adoption  of  a  history  course  drawn 
up  by  a  voluntary  representative  committee  of  teachers 
of  history.  We  in  England  are  much  more  independent 
and  self-assertive  than  our  American  colleagues.  We  each 
like  our  own  way  of  doing  things ;  as  English  ladies  like 
to  dress  each  in  her  own  style,  from  our  queens  downward. 
The  uniformity  of  the  dress  of  American  women  and  girls, 
charming  and  dainty  as  they  are,  becomes  oppressive  after 
a  time  to  an  Englishwoman — as  does  the  uniformity  of 
their  school  equipment.  All  the  best  schools  have  the 
same  things,  which  are,  it  is  presumed,  the  best  at  that 
particular  time,  as  is  the  prevailing  hat,  or  shirt  waist,  or 
set  of  furs. 

The  causes  of  this  uniformity  in  education  as  in  other 
aspects  of  American  life  are  carefully  set  forth  in  Mr. 
Bryce's  great  book ; l  they  are  connected  with  the  cen- 
tral fact,  democracy,  to  which  Henry  James  refers  as  the 
causa  causans  of  so  many  phenomena  in  The  American 
Scene.  If  American  education  presented  anything  like 
the  variety  and  complexity,  not  to  say  the  confusion  and 
entanglement,  of  the  English  system,  the  study  of  it  would 
be  hopeless — as  hopeless  as  the  study  of  English  education 
has  seemed  to  some  competent  American  observers. 

It  has  been  the  good  fortune  of  the  present  writer  to 
spend  two  periods  of  educational  study  in  America  :  one! 
in  1893  as  a  Gilchrist  travelling  scholar,  half  a  generation 

1  The  American  Commonwealth,  chap.  cxii. 


6      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

ago,  which  gave  some  preliminary  outline  of  the  system 
and  some  acquaintance  with  the  principles  and  organisa- 
tion of  American  schools  and  colleges,  especially  those  for 
girls  ;  the  second,  in  the  winter  of  1907-8,  undertaken  as 
an  attempt  to  discover  solutions  to  English  problems  of 
administration  and  teaching,  which  have  arisen  from  ten 
years'  experience  in  Manchester — a  democratic  and  in- 
dustrial urban  community,  the  seat  of  a  great  modern 
university,  and  of  vigorous  and  rapidly  growing  secondary 
schools. 

To  any  such  student  special  subjects  would  have  an  in- 
dividual interest,  according  to  the  subjects  with  which  his 
own  personal  work  was  connected  ;  furthermore,  the  enor- 
mous range  of  the  material  for  study  in  the  United  States 
makes  it  impossible  for  any  one  individual  even  to  attempt 
to  grapple  with  all  sides  of  the  question.  A  choice  must 
be  made,  and  this  choice  is  dependent  naturally  on  two  con- 
siderations, the  subjective,  dependent  on  the  character  of  the 
observer,  and  the  objective,  dependent  on  the  condition  of 
American  education  at  the  time.  The  questions  dealt  with 
in  the  following  chapters  were  of  special  interest  and  value 
to  a  college  woman,  who  was  also  the  head  of  a  large  girls' 
high  school,  a  teacher  of  history,  and  a  member  of  a  City 
Council  education  authority.  No  study  whatever  was  made 
of  rural  education ;  only  cities  were  visited,  and  the  problems 
of  city  organisation,  of  the  relation  of  schools  and  colleges, 
and  of  the  technical  education  of  women  and  girls  were 
-.  those  most  vividly  present  to  the  observer's  mind. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  a  country  so  palpitating  with  life, 
among  a  people  so  active,  daring,1  and  open-minded,  there 

1 "  There  that  wonderful  and  virile  democracy,  imbued  with  the  courage 
and  tenacity  of  its  forefathers,  but  fired  with  an  eager  and  passionate 
exultation,  sprung  into  being."  "  From  this  tempestuous  cauldron  of 
human  passion  and  privation  a  new  character,  earnest,  restless,  exuberant, 
self-confident,  emerged"  (Lord  Curzon  on  Frontiers,  1908). 


General  Introduction  7 

must  at  any  given  time  be  certain  questions  agitating  public 
opinion,  arousing  keen  public  interest  and  discussion  in  any 
province  of  thought  for  which  the  nation  really  cares. 
Education  is  of  all  others  such  a  province  for  Americans, 
and  year  by  year  there  is  always  some  special  area  in  it 
receiving  general  public  attention.  In  England  newspapers, 
magazines,  editors  and  publishers  know  well  that  to  the 
ordinary  Englishman  education  is  a  dull  subject ;  he  will 
not  read  about  or  talk  about  it  except  as  a  matter  of  duty 
or  of  business.  In  America  it  is  otherwise,  and  any  student 
will  find  certain  questions  assuming  prominence,  and  be- 
coming thus  worthy  of  particular  study  at  the  time  of  his 
visit,  whenever  it  be.  In  the  following  pages  an  attempt 
is  made  to  condense  and  reflect  some  of  the  illumination 
thrown  at  present  on  certain  parts  of  the  educational  field 
in  the  United  States. 

So  it  arises  both  from  the  character  of  the  observer  and  of 
the  field  that  certain  chapters  here  are  devoted  to  particular 
sections  of  the  subject,  which  may  appeal  to  others  having 
similar  interests.  In  the  present  introduction  and  in  the 
concluding  summary  an  attempt  is  made  at  an  appreciation 
of  general  tendencies  and  principles  in  American  educa- 
tion, and  at  an  indication  of  the  lessons  which  England 
may  perhaps  do  well  to  learn  from  the  American  system. 
One  warning  and  deprecation  must,  however,  be  clearly 
uttered. 

It  results  from  the  American  custom  of  periodic  con- 
centration on  different  educational  problems,  and  from  the 
national  adaptability  and  readiness  to  try  new  ways  and 
new  machinery,  that  American  education  is  constantly 
growing  and  altering  ;  what  was  true  of  it  a  year  or  so  ago 
is  not  true  to-day.  It  is  not  a  fixed  mould  of  inorganic 
matter.  It  is  a  living  organism,  a  great  world  tree,  like 
the  Igdrasil  of  our  forefathers,  and  the  Norns  of  national 
confidence,  universal  interest,  and  public  opinion  constantly 


8     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

water  its  roots  with  fresh  supplies  of  ideas  and  material, 
so  that  ever  it  puts  forth  new  branches  and  leaves. 

No  observer,  however  careful  and  thorough,  could  de- 
scribe American  education  adequately  and  completely. 
By  the  time  he  had  finished  even  the  outline  of  his  stupen- 
dous task,  it  would  have  altered  so  much  that  the  descrip- 
tion would  be  full  of  errors  and  out  of  date.  One  can  only 
give  impressions,  and  impressions  of  a  specific  period  after 
all. 

The  most  vivid  and  permanent  impression  stamped  on 
every  English  student  is  the  extraordinary  strength  and 
magnitude  of  the  American  belief  in  education.  This  is 
obvious  at  once  to  the  most  careless  observer,  and  it  is  so 
strong  and  so  pervasive  that  the  farther  one  goes  in  the 
study  of  the  subject  the  more  important  it  is  seen  to  be. 
The  Mosely  Commission  Report  of  1903  emphasises  this 
in  nearly  every  article  :  it  is  the  great  lesson  England  has 
to  learn  from  the  United  States.  Fifteen  years  ago  it  was 
as  fixed  as  it  is  to-day ;  much  has  changed  in  the  interval, 
but  belief  in  education  is  more  active  than  ever.  Its  action 
is  materialised  in  the  magnificent  and  stately  buildings 
devoted  to  schools  and  colleges  of  every  kind,  in  their 
elaborate  and  costly  equipment ;  it  is  the  cause  of  the  con- 
fidence and  courage  of  all  educators,  and  the  striking  position 
education  occupies  in  the  public  regard.  There  is  only  one 
element  of  our  national  life  with  which  it  can  be  in  any 
way  compared,  religion,  and  its  outward  expression  in 
organised  religious  institutions.  Education  has  as  good  a 
place  in  American  life  as  the  Churches  have  in  English 
life ;  wealth,  social  prestige,  public  zeal,  intensity  of  feeling, 
the  self-sacrifice  of  officers  and  the  loyalty  and  respect  of 
the  rank  and  file — all  these  characteristics  shown  by  the  one 
power  here,  there  belong  to  the  other.1 

1 "  The  school  ...  so  colossally  has  its  presence  still  to  loom  for  us — 
that  presence  which  profits  so  for  predominance  in  America  by  the  failure 


General  Introduction  9 

It  is  this  which  makes  a  visit  to  America  so  inspiring 
and  strengthening  an  experience  to  an  English  educator. 
Here  we  are  struggling,  against  ignorance,  prejudice  and 
folly,  for  what  we  believe  to  be  a  source  of  national  health 
and  well-being  too  long  disregarded.  There  the  princess 
has  come  to  her  own ;  our  lady  is  honoured  and  beloved, 
and,  while  we  learn  better  how  to  serve  her,  we  return 
thence  with  new  confidence  and  courage  to  the  painful  joys, 
the  victorious  failures  of  our  own  campaign. 

of  concurrent  and  competitive  presences,  the  failure  of  any  others  living 
at  all  on  the  same  scale  save  that  of  business,  those  in  particular  of  a 
visible  Church,  a  visible  State,  a  visible  Society,  a  visible  Past"  (Henry 
James,  The  American  Scene,  p.  134). 


I. 

It  may  be  well  in  the  first  instance  to  give  some  outline 
of  the  American  educational  system  for  those  readers  who 
may  not  be  familiar  with  the  technical  terms  in  use  on 
the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic.  As  we  have  said,  these 
are  often  used  with  an  entirely  different  meaning  from  that 
they  bear  here,  and  the  system  itself  is  altogether  different 
from  ours,  though  fortunately  simpler,  if  once  the  difference 
is  understood  between  the  Federal  or  United  States  part 
of  the  Government,  and  the  part  which  belongs  to  each 
individual  State  of  the  Union.  This  distinction  is  always 
difficult  to  English  people,  inasmuch  as  they  have  no  ex- 
perience of  anything  of  the  kind,  and  also  because  in 
America  the  sphere  of  individual  State  law  and  State 
action  is  very  much  larger  than  that  covered  by  the 
Federal  Government,  which  deals  only  with  depart- 
ments such  as  the  Army,  Navy,  Foreign  Affairs,  Post 
Office,  and  any  other  powers  definitely  reserved  to  it 
by  the  Constitution.  All  other  affairs  rest  with  the  par- 
ticular States,  and  among  these  is  education.  The  United 
States  Government  has  nothing  whatever  to  do  with  edu- 
cation, and  has  no  control  over  it ;  there  is  thus  nothing 
corresponding  to  the  English  Board  of  Education  at 
Whitehall,  to  the  system  of  national  inspection  by  his 
Majesty's  Inspectors,  grants  from  the  National  Exchequer, 
or  the  codes  and  regulations  from  the  central  government, 
with  which  English  teachers  and  administrators  are  now 
so  familiar.  The  National  Bureau  of  Education  at  Wash- 
ington, important  and  useful  as  it  is,  is  a  mere  office  for 


General  Introduction  1 1 

collecting  statistics,  and  making  these  known  to  the  public. 
Each  State  has  its  own  school  laws  ;  its  own  plan  of  Schoolv 
Boards ;  its  own  divisions  for  administrative  purposes,  etc. 
The  school  law  is  as  a  rule  not  detailed ;  it  leaves  con- 
siderable freedom  to  localities,  except  that  in  many  States 
the  teaching  of  hygiene  and  temperance  is  compulsory. 

Broadly  speaking,  the  uniformity  which  is  characteristic^ 
of  American  life  prevails  also  in  education,  and  the  system 
of  one  State  differs  very  little,  except  in  detail,  from  that 
of  another.  The  schools  are  managed  locally ;  each  city 
has  its  own  Board,  generally  elected  ad  hoc.  Rural  areas 
in  New  England  preserve  the  old  town  meeting  organisa- 
tion of  early  English  times  for  local  government,  and  the 
town  meeting  is  the  local  authority  for  education.  In 
some  States  the  county  is  the  unit,  but  the  details  of  these 
differences  really  matter  very  little.  As  a  rule  there  is  a 
State  Board  of  Education,  which  often  gives  grants  to 
necessitous  districts  especially  for  secondary  education,  and 
which  sometimes  provides  and  governs  normal  colleges, 
as  in  Massachusetts.  State  universities  in  the  West  form 
part  of  the  public  system,  but  are  governed  by  Regents 
appointed  ad  hoc.  Women  tax-payers  vote  in  School 
Board  elections,  and  as  a  rule  women  are  eligible  to  sit  on 
School  Boards,  but  the  number  of  such  women  is  very 
small  and  seems  to  be  diminishing.  There  is  no  provision 
as  in  the  English  Act  of  1902  that  the  local  authority 
must  include  women.  The  really  important  part  of  the 
administrative  system  in  State,  county  or  city  is  the  Super-  * 
intendent,  or  Director  of  Education  as  we  should  call  him  ; 
a  paid  executive  officer,  the  servant  and  agent  of  the 
School  Board,  who  organises  the  system  locally,  regularly 
inspects  the  work  of  the  schools,  in  some  places  even  ap- 
points the  teachers,  in  all  cases  meets  and  instructs  them, 
and  is  "the  living  pulse  of  the  machine".  This  one-man 
power  in  a  city  is  very  remarkable,  and  not  at  all  what 


12     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

English  people  like,  but  it  may  be  paralleled  by  the 
American  Railway  President,  or  other  head  of  a  great 
business  corporation.  The  system  has  indeed  been 
evolved  to  meet  the  educational  and  political  needs  and 
dangers  of  American  administration.  The  corruption  of 
municipal  life  in  America  has  in  some  cases  even  affected 
the  schools,1  but  there  is  a  very  strong  and  not  ineffective 
public  opinion  "that  the  schools  must  be  kept  out  of 
politics,"  and  the  administrative  machinery  is  often 
changed  to  endeavour  to  secure  this  end.  Recently  in 
Boston  the  whole  system  has  been  remodelled,  a  Board 
of  five  persons  has  replaced  the  large  one,  the  idea  being 
that  a  small  body  is  likely  to  be  composed  of  more  dis- 
tinguished people,  less  open  to  undesirable  influences.  At 
the  same  time  the  power  of  the  superintendent  has  been 
increased;  the  teachers  are  appointed  on  what  is  called 
Civil  Service  Rules,  that  is  according  to  an  examination 
list,  candidates  being  arranged  in  order  of  merit,  and 
vacancies  being  filled  by  rotation.  It  is  said  that  in 
smaller  areas  the  machinery  of  local  government  works 
much  better;  the  teachers  are  properly  appointed  and 
have  a  reasonable  security  of  tenure,  but  the  position  of  a 
teacher  in  a  public  school  is  nothing  like  as  secure  as  it 
is  in  England  under  a  local  authority. 

The  distinction  between  public  and  private  educational 
institutions  is  entirely  different  in  England  and  America ; 
there  they  find  it  extremely  difficult  to  understand  our  use 
of  the  term  public  school  for  one  which  is  managed  by  its 
own  body  of  governors  and  which  charges  fees.  Such  an 
institution  is  private  in  America,  and  its  governing  body 
would  be  spoken  of  as  a  private  corporation.  In  this  sense 
even  Harvard  and  Yale  are  private,  not  public,  institutions. 
The  public  school  in  America  is  one  that  belongs  to  the 
community,  and  is  supported  out  of  local  taxation  like  an 

1  See  Lucy  M.  Salmon,  Patronage  in  the  Public  Schools.    Boston,  1908. 


General  Introduction  13 

English  municipal  secondary  or  a  provided  elementary 
school,  and  which  has  no  fees.  It  is  also  necessarily  secu- 
lar, in  the  sense  that  no  religious  instruction  is  given  in  it, 
though  in  some  States  religious  observances  of  a  very 
simple  kind  still  persist.  Here,  again,  the  American  system 
is  uniform  and  simple ;  there  are  no  non-provided  ele- 
mentary schools  receiving  public  money,  as  in  England,  no 
public  or  proprietary  secondary  schools  eligible  for  State  or 
municipal  grants  but  governed  by  independent  corporations, 
like  our  ancient  grammar  schools  or  the  modern  girls'  high 
schools,  or  schools  of  a  definite  denominational  character. 
Everything  there  that  is  not  under  the  local  authority  is 
private,  and  has  to  be  supported  from  private  resources,  en- 
dowments, gifts  or  fees.  English  people  naturally  think  this 
way  of  drawing  the  line  unwise ;  it  tends  to  a  mechanical  uni- 
formity, and  confuses  the  real  issues,  for  such  institutions  as 
Harvard  and  Columbia  are  essentially  public  and  national. 
The  American  public  education  system  is  not  at  all 
difficult  to  grasp  ;  it  has  grown  up  all  in  one  piece,  so  to 
speak,  and  each  part  is  related  to  the  next.  It  originated 
with  what  we  should  call  the  public  elementary  school, 
which  is  emphatically  free  ;  indeed  the  Americans  find  it 
hard  to  understand  how  a  public  school  can  be  anything 
but  a  free  school.  Since  such  an  institution  is  common, 
free,  and  public,  it  takes  both  boys  and  girls  and  has  been 
used  by  all  classes.  For  the  masses  of  the  population  the 
years  from  six  to  fourteen  are  covered  by  the  school  course ; 
in  cities  the  schools  are  graded  into  eight  grades,  corre- 
sponding with  the  years  of  school  life.  The  first  four,  from 
six  to  ten,  are  called  the  "  primary  grades,"  the  next  four 
are  called  the  "  grammar  grades".  A  pupil  who  has  suc- 
cessfully completed  such  a  course  of  study  graduates  from 
the  grammar  school  between  fourteen  and  fifteen  years  of 
age ;  such  pupils  may  proceed  to  the  high  school.  The  next 
stage,  which  has  a  four  years'  course,  covers  from  fourteen 


14     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

to  eighteen  years  of  age,  and  is  of  course  a  secondary  school ; 
it  also  is  free,  and,  in  general,  co-educational.  As  a  rule 
algebra  and  geometry,  formal  science,  and  languages  other 
than-  English  are  reserved  for  the  high  school  curriculum. 

From  the  high  school  the  pupil  may  go  on  to  college 
for  another  four  years,  from  eighteen  to  twenty-two ;  here 
he  receives  a  general  liberal  education,  including  Latin  and 
mathematics,  English  and  history,  and  something  of 
science  and  modern  languages;  on  this  course  the  A.B. 
degree  is  given.  After  the  college  comes  the  university, 
which  under  German  influence  is  now  considered  in 
America  to  be  an  institution  giving  advanced  instruction, 
post-graduate  work  in  philosophy,  and  professional  instruc- 
tion in  law,  medicine,  theology,  etc.1  Ideally,  therefore,  the 

i «  What  are  the  distinctive  ideals  of  the  college  and  of  the  university  ? 
There  is  a  general  agreement  that  the  college  exists  for  the  purpose  of 
training  men,  under  a  wider  or  narrower  conception  of  freedom,  in  those 
studies  which  lead,  not  to  a  particular  calling,  but  to  a  general  view  of 
the  world  and  a  comprehension  of  our  duty  to  it.  Its  ideals  are  those 
of  character  and  of  service,  but  it  seeks  to  establish  these  ideals  mainly 
by  teaching  the  process  of  right  thinking.  A  college  education  intended 
simply  to  widen  our  sympathies  without  strengthening  our  vision  would 
be  a  failure.  A  man's  efficiency  in  the  social  order  is  equal  to  his  moral 
purpose  multiplied  into  his  ability  to  think  straight.  The  college  claims 
to  turn  into  the  world  citizens  whose  ability  to  think  straight  on  moral, 
social  and  political  questions  is,  on  the  whole,  higher  than  that  of  the  man 
who  lacks  this  training.  For  such  an  institution  there  should  be  sought  a 
professor  who  is  pre-eminently  a  teacher,  a  man  capable  of  intellectual 
and  social  leadership.  If  the  college  has  justified  its  existence  it  is  to  be 
commended  to  all  youth  whatever  vocations  in  life  they  may  have  in  view, 
and  out  of  this  great  number  only  a  few  will  become  scholars. 

"  Whether  one  considers  the  university  from  the  standpoint  of  its  historic 
development  or  from  its  present  r61e  in  the  civilised  world,  its  function  is 
in  sharp  contrast  to  that  of  the  college  in  its  purposes  and  its  methods. 
These  are : — 

"  i.  Professional  training  based  upon  high  educational  standards. 

"  2.  Scholarly  research. 

"  Its  ideals  are  high  professional  efficiency  and  productive  scholarship. 
The  teachers  whom  it  draws  to  its  service  must  be  first  of  all  experts,  in- 
vestigators, leaders  of  their  professions  "  (Carnegie  Foundation  Report,  1907). 


General  Introduction  15 

American  youth  who  is  to  be  a  doctor,  or  the  American 
girl  who  is  to  teach  classics  in  a  first-rate  secondary  school, 
and  who  must  therefore  have  taken  post-graduate  work, 
will  have  been  under  instruction  from  six  to  twenty-five 
years  of  age.  This  ideal  system  does  not  of  course  ob- 
tain everywhere,  but  it  is  remarkable  to  notice  how  often 
it  holds.  That  Americans  go  through  so  long  a  pro- 
cess of  education  is  a  forceful  testimony  both  as  to  their 
belief  in  education,  and  to  the  cost,  in  time  and  money, 
they  are  willing  to  incur  for  what  is  to  them  one  of  the 
greatest  of  advantages.  Naturally  there  are  objections 
to  this  very  lengthy  preparation,  which  is  a  demand  of 
comparatively  modern  origin.  Many  authorities  think  that 
the  period  must  be  shortened  ;  they  point  out  that  twenty- 
five  is  too  late  for  a  young  man  to  begin  his  professional 
work,  that  the  age  of  marriage  is  thus  postponed  to  an  ex- 
tent undesirable  in  the  interests  of  the  community,  and  that 
an  unnecessarily  heavy  burden  is  placed  on  parents.  Such 
reformers  consider  that  at  least  two  years  and  possibly 
longer  could  be  saved  in  two  places,  the  grammar  school 
and  the  college.  These  are  at  present  the  storm  centres  of 
American  education  ;  they  present  problems  of  very  great 
difficulty,  and  undoubtedly  some  modification  in  the  system 
must  take  place  at  these  years.  Judging  by  the  experience 
of  other  nations  the  high  school  course  begins  too  late ; 
twelve,  not  fourteen,  is  the  proper  age  for  secondary  edu- 
cation to  begin.  The  higher  age  arose  in  America  histori- 
cally, because  the  high  school  grew  out  of  the  ordinary 
public  elementary  school  just  as  the  Higher  Grade  Board 
Schools  did  in  England.  In  Boston,  and  some  other  ad- 
vanced educational  communities,  efforts  have  been  made 
to  begin  secondary  education  at  twelve  ;  Latin  and  algebra 
have  been  put  into  the  grammar  grades,  and  the  course  of 
study  in  the  high  school  is  in  some  cases  lengthened  (e.g., 
Girls'  Latin  School,  Boston).  The  difficulty  is  of  course 


1 6     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

to  distinguish  at  twelve  years  of  age  between  those  children 
who  will  leave  early  to  go  to  work,  and  those  who  will  go 
on  through  the  high  school,  possibly  to  college.  We  have 
this  difficulty  in  England,  but  the  whole  trend  of  demo- 
cratic feeling  in  America  is  against  settling  at  an  early  age 
what  a  child's  future  is  going  to  be ;  it  is  natural  there  to 
keep  the  children  together  as  long  as  possible,  and  it  is 
only  the  pressure  of  modern  conditions  which  will  induce 
an  alteration  of  the  time-honoured  system  of  beginning 
\  secondary  education  at  fourteen  years  of  age.  The  first- 
rate  private  schools  like  the  Horace  Mann  School  of  Col- 
umbia University,  New  York,  solve  the  problem  easily  by 
taking  their  pupils  at  thirteen  for  a  high  school  course  of 
study  five  years  in  length. 

The  primary  grades,  six  to  ten  years  of  age,  present  no 
problems ;  indeed  it  is  generally  acknowledged  that  these 
are  among  the  most  excellent  features  of  the  American 
educational  system.  They  have  no  infant  schools,  as  we 
have ;  American  opinion  would  entirely  disapprove  of 
formal  teaching  for  babies  of  three  years  of  age.  The 
more  enlightened  cities  like  St.  Louis  have  public  kinder- 
gartens for  children  below  six  years  of  age,  but  these  are 
what  the  name  implies,  and  no  formal  teaching  of  the  three 
R's  is  given  in  them  ;  this  is  reserved  for  the  first  grade  of 
the  primary  school,  and  is  generally  very  well  done.  The 
work  in  the  seventh  and  eighth  grammar  grades  on  the 
other  hand  is  often  too  easy  for  the  boys,  and  is  said  to  be 
too  abstract  to  arouse  interest  among  the  pupils.  Many 
leave  from  these  grades  before  fourteen,  and  it  is  said  that 
a  greater  amount  of  practical  work,  bearing  more  definitely 
on  future  occupations  in  life,  would  interest  the  boys  and 
girls,  and  induce  larger  numbers  to  remain  to  the  end  of 
the  course.  A  large  number  of  those  who  do  remain  go 
on  for  a  year  to  the  high  school,  begin  the  course  of  study 
there,  and  never  finish  it,  leaving  at  the  end  of  the  first 


General  Introduction  17 

year,  either  because  they  have  to  go  to  work,  or  because 
they  find  the  studies  uninteresting  and  make  little  progress. 
These  difficulties  point  to  the  need  of  a  new  type  of  school 
course  in  America  covering  three  years,  from  twelve  to 
fifteen  or  thereabouts,  for  young  people  who  will  earn  their 
living  early,  and  whose  curriculum  should  be  largely  of  a 
practical  character.1  This  would  correspond  of  course  with 
the  higher  elementary  school  of  England,  and  the  fccole 
primaire  superieure  of  France.  American  opinion  to-day 
is  much  agitated  on  this  question,  and  it  is  striking  to 
notice  how  modern  industrial  conditions  are  forcing  on 
them  the  same  type  of  school  that  Europe  requires. 

The  high  school  also  presents  its  problems,  but  these  are 
not  so  much  questions  of  organisation  as  of  curriculum,  and 
they  have  been  largely  solved  during  recent  years  by  the 
adoption  of  the  elective  system,  and  by  the  establishment 
of  new  high  schools  of  different  types,  some  commercial, 
some  for  manual  training,  while  others,  like  the  Latin 
schools  of  Boston,  are  reserved  for  the  old  classical  course. 
It  is  the  college  which  presents  the  most  difficult  problems 
to-day.  The  old  American  colleges  gave,  as  we  have  said, 
a  general  liberal  education  in  days  when  the  secondary 
schools  were  not  so  good  as  they  are  now,  and  when  the 
modern  professions  of  engineering,  architecture,  etc.,  had  not 
developed.  The  idea  of  the  college  is  still  very  powerful. 
It  has  a  social  life  and  prestige  of  its  own  which  are  highly 
valued,  but  under  modern  conditions  there  is  hardly  room 
for  the  four  years  of  liberal  studies  as  well  as  a  professional 
course.  Thus  there  is  a  strong  tendency  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  amount  of  liberal  culture  given  in  the  high  school, 
and  to  send  the  boys,  especially,  to  a  Technical  College  or 
to  the  technical  side  of  a  university.  The  strongest  institu- 

1  See  William  H.  Maxwell,  City  Superintendent,  New  York,  on  "  Present 
Problems  of  the  School,"  St.  Louis  Congress,  1904.  (Boston,  Houghton, 
Mifflin  &  Co.) 

2 


1 8     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

tions,  however,  demand  the  A.B.  degree  as  a  pre-requisite 
of  technical  study,  and  every  one  admits  that  this  is  the 
ideal.  It  is  pointed  out,  however,  that  the  standard  of 
entrance  to  college  has  risen,  and  that  the  high  schools  do 
much  work  which  fifty  years  ago  was  done  in  the  old- 
fashioned  college.  Some  of  the  more  progressive  bodies 
have  adopted  a  compromise ;  they  demand  two  years  of 
general  liberal  education  in  college  before  technical  study 
may  begin.  This  is  the  rule  at  Columbia,  where,  in  his 
third  year  in  college,  a  youth,  say  twenty  years  of  age,  may 
begin  his  professional  course  in  medicine,  architecture, 
teaching,  etc.  Clearly  this  plan  saves  two  years,  and  thus 
in  Columbia  and  similarly  organised  universities  the  liberal 
course  and  the  professional  course  need  only  take  five  years, 
and  the  youth  can  begin  to  earn  at  twenty-three.  The 
saving  of  a  year  in  the  grammar  grades  might  still  further 
shorten  educational  life.  "  I  believe  that  the  first  step  is 
to  extend  the  work  of  the  public  high  school,  and  thus  to 
pave  the  way  for  the  ultimate  dropping  out  of  the  college."  l 
So  far  nothing  has  been  said  about  the  normal  college 
or  normal  school.  This  is  an  important  part  of  the  educa- 
tional system ;  it  prepares  teachers  for  the  public  schools 
and  corresponds  roughly  with  our  training  colleges  which 
do  not  give  a  degree.  The  normal  school  has  a  two  years' 
course,  and  is  attended  almost  entirely  by  young  women 
(the  word  teacher  in  America  always  implies  the  use  of 
feminine  pronouns,  she,  her,  etc.) ;  the  requisite  for  ad- 
mission is  the  completion  of  a  high  school  course  of  four 
years.  There  is  nothing  in  America  corresponding  with 
the  Pupil  Teachers'  Centre  or  the  Day  Training  Depart- 
ment of  an  English  university;  some  universities,  how- 
ever, give  professional  training  to  teachers,  there  being  no 
definite  line  between  those  who  teach  in  primary  and 
those  who  teach  in  secondary  schools. 

1  Balliet,  New  Aspects  of  Educational  Thought,  1899. 


II. 

There  are  certain  fundamental  contrasts  between  the 
American  and  the  English  systems  of  education  which  do 
not  perhaps  appear  at  first  sight,  but  which,  when  once 
they  are  discerned,  seem  to  go  very  deep  down;  they 
depend  on  fundamental  differences  of  principle,  and  are  not 
merely  varieties  of  nomenclature  or  organisation.  Every 
thoughtful  observer  would  doubtless  form  his  own  list  of 
these  contrasts,  and  give  his  own  reasons  for  them,  accord- 
ing to  his  particular  way  of  thinking  and  his  educational 
experience  in  England.  The  present  writer  has  observed 
_five  such  differences  of  principle,  which  appear  to  her  to 
explain  many  of  the  differences  in  the  phenomena  of 
schools,  and  which  may  themselves  be  explained  by  the 
historic  conditions  of  American  life;  these  contrasts  may 
perhaps  be  enunciated  as  follows  : — 

First,  they  educate  the  mass  of  the  people,  while  we 
have  always  educated  the  leaders.  Even  to-day,  when 
England,  like  America,  is  a  democracy,  we  still  seek  to 
educate  the  leaders,  the  persons  above  the  average,  though 
we  are  ready  to  take  them  from  any  class  of  society. 
This  is  no  new  phenomenon,  dating  from  the  invention  of 
Junior  County  Scholarships.  As  long  as  we  have  had 
higher  education,  since  the  days  of  Bede  at  Jarrow  and 
Theodore  at  Canterbury,  English  boys  of  ability,  gentle 
and  simple  alike,  have  been  picked  out  and  trained  for  the 
service  of  the  nation,  in  Church  or  State,  even  when  the  great 
mass  of  the  population  did  not  go  to  school  at  all.  People 

19  2  * 


2O     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

talk  sometimes  as  if,  till  after  1870,  there  was  no  chance 
for  the  poor  boy  of  parts ;  but  this  is  a  superficial  view. 
The  English  idea  of  education  has  always  included  two 
ends — the  technical  training  of  the  average  child  for  his  or 
her  business  in  life,  as  ploughman  or  carpenter,  knight  or 
earl,  goodwife  or  chatelaine ;  and  the  selection  and  teach- 
ing of  the  exceptional  individual  for  public  service,  as  the 
bidding  prayer  of  the  universities  declares  : — 

For  a  due  supply  of  persons  qualified  to  serve  God  in  Church 
and  State,  let  us  implore  His  special  blessing  on  all  schools. 

The  records  of  our  universities  bear  witness  to  the  reality 
and  fulfilment  of  this  purpose. 

American  education,  on  the  other  hand,  has  aimed  at  a 
general  liberal  education  for  all  in  the  common  school, 
providing  also  in  its  colleges  for  the  continuance  of  the 
English  tradition  of  training  leaders  : — 

That  learning  may  not  be  buried  in  the  grave  of  our  fathers. 
...  It  is  therefore  ordered  that  every  township  .  .  .  shall 
forthwith  appoint  one  within  their  towne  to  teach  all  such 
children  as  shall  resort  to  him  to  write  and  reade.  .  .  .  And  it 
is  further  ordered  that  where  any  towne  shall  increase  to  the 
number  of  100  families  they  shall  set  up  a  grammar  schoole, 
the  Master  thereof  being  able  to  instruct  youth  so  farr  as  they 
may  be  fitted  for  the  University  (Massachusetts  Ordinance, 
1647). 

Education  being  free,  the  scholarship  system  has  not 
developed  in  America,  and  thus  the  schools  have  never 
formed  the  habit  of  looking  out  for  brilliant  pupils  and 
bringing  them  up  to  a  high  standard  in  special  subjects. 
The  feeling  there  is  that  the  first-rate  student  will  always 
be  able  to  get  along  for  himself.  What  the  nation  needs 
is  training  and  opportunity  for  the  average  boy  or  girl, 
who  ranks  at  40  per  cent,  to  75  per  cent,  in  school  grading. 
The  great  majority  of  the  population  is  found  in  this  group. 


General  Introduction  21 

The  exceptional  people  above  or  below  this  range  are  not 
provided  for ;  if  very  weak,  they  are  not  worth  troubling 
about  and  drop  out  of  school ;  if  very  strong,  they  can 
work  on  alone. 

Secondly,  teachers  and  students  there  have  an  entirely  , 
different  aim  from  ours.  We  teachers  in  England  are 
conscious  that  there  is  a  certain  body  of  knowledge  which 
the  pupils  must  master;  it  is  authoritative,  and  half-un- 
consciously  perhaps  we  feel  that  the  important  thing  is  for 
us  to  make  them  acquire  it  and  possess  it.  The  test  for 
our  classes  is  very  largely  by  a  written  examination,  thus 
thoroughness  and  care  and  accuracy  are  emphasised.  The 
pupils  feel  this  too ;  they  realise  they  have  to  get  hold  of 
a  subject  so  that  they  know  their  Latin,  algebra,  history, 
physics,  etc.1  The  American  pupils,  and  therefore  the 
American  teacher,  are  seeking  not  knowledge  but  power, 
facility  of  mind.  The  schoolboy  there  learns  to  use  aJ 
text-book  and  a  library,  to  get  hold  of  a  subject  and  to 
talk  about  it  in  class  clearly  and  thoughtfully.  Six  months 
afterwards  he  may  not  be  able  to  pass  a  written  examina- 
tion on  it,  but  that  does  not  matter,  he  could  get  it  up 
again  if  it  were  worth  while.2 

It  is  this  difference  of  aim  which  makes  the  unsympa- 
thetic English  observer  call  American  education  superficial, 
and  say  that  it  lacks  thoroughness  and  accuracy.  These 
phrases  the  present  writer  will  never  use ;  she  believes  them 
unjust  and  inappropriate ;  but  there  is  a  real  difference  in 
the  kind  of  work  done  in  the  schools  which  is  thus  described 
at  first  sight.  The  American  observer  here  is  perhaps  too 

111  Unfortunately,  this  quantitative  ideal  of  education,  with  its  resultant 
processes,  is  still  widely  influential  and  it  tempts  us  to  seek  the  evidences 
of  an  education  in  the  number  of  languages  learned,  in  the  variety  of 
sciences  studied,  and  generally  in  the  quantity  of  facts  held  in  the 
memory  reserve  "  (N.  M.  Butler,  Educational  Review,  November,  tgoi). 

3  In  New  York  where  the  schools  are  tested  by  examinations,  the  aim 
is  more  like  that  of  an  English  secondary  school. 


22     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

polite,  and  too  sympathetic  with  the  charm  ot  the  old 
country,  to  comment  on  the  density  of  mind,  the  want  of 
initiative  and  quickness  which  he  would  notice  in  going 
round  an  English  school.  Their  phraseology  of  the  class- 
room illustrates  the  difference  of  aim  ;  they  "  go  through  " 
or  "  study  "  a  subject,  we  "  learn  lessons  "  ;  these  last  two 
words,  so  characteristic  of  English  schools,  are  never  heard 
on  the  other  side.  The  "  lesson  "  is  a  "  recitation  "  where 
the  pupils  stand  up  and  recite  what  they  have  studied  in 
their  text-books  or  in  works  of  reference  in  a  library ;  the 
recitation  includes  also  questioning  and  discussion  by  other 
members  of  the  class,  and  by  the  teacher.  Opinions  are 
freely  offered,  and  pupils  are  trained  to  use  their  judgment 
on  the  material,  and  to  give  their  opinions  in  a  recitation ; 
but  in  it  problems  are  sometimes  put  and  never  solved ; 
the  teacher  is  satisfied  if  the  intelligence  of  the  pupils  has 
been  at  work,  or  is  likely  to  be  at  work  afterwards  thinking 
over  the  subject.  An  English  teacher  would  feel  that  she 
was  superficial  unless  she  saw  that  every  member  of  the 
class  was  provided  with  the  accurate  solution  of  the  problem 
once  it  had  been  raised,  and  had  learnt  carefully  that  solution. 
It  is  extremely  difficult  to  compare  the  standards  of 
work,  but  it  is  highly  probable  that  the  American  pupil  at 
eighteen  does  not  possess  so  much  actual  knowledge  as  a 
member  of  one  of  our  good  Upper  V.  or  VI.  Forms ;  we 
may  illustrate  this  from  the  college  requirements  in  English 
literature ;  they  have  to  read  six  to  ten  books  where  we 
require  two  to  five.  The  result  of  study  in  the  two  cases 
must  necessarily  be  different.  What  the  American  has 
gained  from  school  training  is  general  intellectual  experi- 
ence over  a  wide  area,  the  power  of  self-directed  work,  a 
readiness  for  emergencies,  the  power  of  rapid  acquisition, 
adaptability  and  quickness.  Our  abler  pupils  probably 
get  more  training  in  reasoning  power,  as  for  example  in 
difficult  Latin  prose,  but  the  average  pupil  with  them  is 


General  Introduction  23 

constantly  exercised  in  forming  judgments  and  conducting 
arguments  in  class. 

Connected  with  this  difference  in  aim  is  the  different 
emphasis  and  method  of  estimating  standards ;  with  them, 
as  the  lawyers  say,  "  Time  is  of  the  essence  of  the  con- 
tract," that  is,  all  the  standards  are  reckoned  according  to 
the  time  given  in  the  school,  and  not  so  much  by  the 
amount  or  quality  of  work  done,  a  much  more  difficult 
matter  to  estimate.  We  are  just  becoming  familiar  in_ 
England  with  the  idea  of  the  four  years'  course  of  the 
Board  of  Education,  but  we  do  not  estimate  our  standards 
by  the  number  of  lessons  per  week  and  the  number  of 
weeks  in  the  school  year  given  to  a  particular  subject. 
This  they  do  in  America.  For  graduation  from  the  high 
school  (what  we  should  call  a  leaving  certificate),  or  for 
admission  to  the  university  (what  we  call  matriculation), 
a  certain  number  of  units,  generally  fifteen,  must  be  offered. 
A  unit,  like  the  Board  of  Trade  unit  by  which  one  buys 
electricity  in  England,  needs  a  careful  technical  definition, 
as  follows :  the  study  of  a  subject  one  lesson-period  a 
day,  with  home-work,  five  days  a  week  for  thirty  weeks  of 
a  school  session,  i.e,,  150  hours  of  class-work,  is  a  unit. 
In  general  three  units  of  English,  three  units  of  mathe- 
matics, and  at  least  three  units  of  language  study  are 
required ;  the  remainder  up  to  fifteen,  more  or  less,  is 
made  up  of  optional  subjects.  The  degree  qualification 
at  college  is  estimated  much  in  the  same  way  by  units  or 
points.  Clearly  this  system  tends  to  an  emphasis  on 
quantity  not  on  quality,  and  some  institutions  in  the 
front  rank,  like  Columbia,  are  developing  a  method  of 
saving  time  by  allowing  students  to  offer  work  of  a  higher 
quality  which  will  count  for  more  and  thus  save  time. 
The  application  of  a  time  unit  is  so  fundamental  in 
American  education  that  we  shall  return  to  it  again  and 
again  in  the  following  pages. 


24     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

It  is  a  commonplace  that  the  education  of  a  country 
should  arise  out  of  the  needs  and  conditions  of  that  country, 
which  is  another  reason  for  the  injustice  of  the  phrase 
"  superficial "  so  often  applied  here  to  American  education. 
They  aim  at  what  they  want ;  the  real  test  is,  do  they 
secure  it  ?  Of  this  they  are  the  best  judges,  not  we.  It  is 
clear  that  in  a  new  country  where  various  occupations  may 
be  taken  up  by  any  one  person,  and  where  general  adapt- 
ability and  facility  of  mind  are  the  most  important  qualities 
for  practical  success,  the  intellectual  powers  fostered  by  the 
American  system  are  those  the  community  needs.  When 
their  civilisation  is  so  mature,  elaborate,  and  fixed  that  a 
boy's  career  will  be  settled  for  him  at  an  early  age,  then 
the  work  of  their  schools  may  approximate  much  more  to 
those  of  an  older  country,  but  before  this  happens  the 
American  principle  of  democracy  will  have  been  profoundly 
modified  also. 

The  third  difference  is  in  the  comparative  absence  of 
sanction  and  stimulus  in  the  American  school  compared 
with  that  of  England ;  speaking  generally,  there  are  no 
prizes  and  no  punishments.  One  might  even  say  there  is 
no  compulsion  in  an  American  school :  boys  and  girls  are 
there  to  work,  and  they  do  work.  The  American  teacher 
will  say  "  this  is  a  free  country,"  and  as  a  matter  of  fact 
the  young  people,  as  if  already  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  are  at  school  of  their  own  free-will,  and  are  not  in 
our  sense  of  the  word  under  authority.  Nothing  is  more 
remarkable  or  more  puzzling  to  an  English  teacher  than 
the  good  discipline  and  the  absence  of  any  elaborate  system 
of  rules  and  penalties  in  an  American  school.  We  spend 
so  much  of  our  time  and  energy  in  maintaining  order,  in 
seeing  that  every  pupil  does  the  proper  amount  of  work, 
at  least  to  a  reasonable  standard,  and  in  dealing  generally 
with  the  thousand  and  one  matters  that  come  under  the 
head  of  discipline,  that  we  cannot  understand  how  an 


General  Introduction  25 

American  school  is  so  easily  run.  Americans  say  that  it  is 
the  very  rules  and  penalties  themselves  that  are  the  cause 
of  trouble,  and  that  if  we  took  them  all  away  and  trusted 
to  freedom  we  should  find  our  task  as  easy  as  theirs.  One 
would  like  to  make  the  experiment,  and  undoubtedly  much 
more  might  be  done,  much  more  is  being  done,  in  the 
direction  of  giving  greater  freedom  in  our  schools.  But  at 
present  we  lack  in  England  what  is  the  real  sanction  and 
stimulus  in  the  American  school — the  force  of  public  opinion. 
It  is  because  America  believes  in  education,  while  England 
fundamentally  does  not,  that  the  American  boy  and  girl 
need  no  prizes  and  no  punishments ;  and  ours  might  idle 
and  riot  without  such  sanctions.  However,  this  may  not 
be  the  only  cause.  There  is  possibly  a  real  difference  in 
character,  though  it  would  need  a  wiser  observer  and  far 
deeper  study  to  be  at  all  certain  on  the  point.  Is  there 
not  in  the  English  boy,  and  to  some  extent  in  the  English 
girl,  a  certain  wild  element,  a  certain  defiance,  something 
of  the  primitive  barbarian  which  needs  the  stronger  con- 
trol, the  more  rigid  system  of  the  English  school  ?  Adult 
Americans  are  extraordinarily  patient  and  submissive  when 
things  go  wrong,  when  trains  are  late,  and  tram-cars 
crowded,  and  roads  badly  paved,  and  postal  and  telegraph 
services  inefficient,  though  they  can  be  forceful  and  stern 
enough  when  they  are  really  roused,  as  the  Civil  War 
proved.  Their  boys  and  girls  in  school  certainly  seem 
quieter,  steadier,  and  more  self-reliant  and  hard-working 
than  the  corresponding  types  in  England. 

One  has  an  impression  also  that,  just  as  stern  and  formal 
discipline  is  not  required,  so  first-rate  teaching  and  very 
good  methods  of  explaining  difficulties  do  not  seem  so 
much  in  demand  as  with  us  ;  one  feels  that  teaching  which 
is  accepted  and  approved  in  good  American  schools  would 
not  be  found  to  secure  the  attention  and  interest  of  pupils, 
or  the  approval  of  inspectors  in  England,  nor  would  it 


26      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

suffice  to  get  English  boys  and  girls  through  their  ex- 
aminations. It  would  not  be  stimulating  enough,  nor 
helpful  enough  to  the  pupil.  Probably  we  teachers  do  too 
much  in  England,  especially  in  girls'  schools,  but  in  our 
heavier,  duller  atmosphere,  and  our  depressing  climate,  our 
young  people  need  waking  up,  guiding,  and  driving  more 
than  boys  and  girls  in  the  invigorating  air  of  New  England 
and  the  West. 

Undoubtedly  co-education  has  had  an  influence  in  im- 
proving discipline,  and  making  the  tone  of  the  schools 
intellectually  more  stimulating.  As  has  often  been  said, 
the  natural  modesty  of  each  sex  induces  both  girls  and 
boys  to  behave  better  in  one  another's  presence  than  they 
would  apart ;  intellectually,  too,  the  task  of  school  work  is 
made  easier  by  co-education.  The  boys'  greater  initiative 
and  independence  add  to  the  intellectual  vigour  of  the  class, 
while  the  steady  industry  and  greater  conscientiousness  of 
girls  automatically  help  to  keep  up  the  standard,  with  much 
less  effort  on  the  part  of  the  teacher  than  is  needed  here. 

Still,  even  when  allowance  is  made  for  this  important 
element  in  the  question,  the  main  influence  that  keeps  the 
machine  going  is  the  public  respect  for  schools,  the  belief 
in  education,  which  affects  the  young  people  profoundly, 
both  through  the  direct  pressure  of  the  necessary  practical 
preparation  for  life,  and  the  indirect,  all-pervading  power 
of  public  opinion. 

There  are  other  contrasts  that  are  of  a  more  obvious  and 
definite  character,  which  have  been  mentioned,  or  are  to  be 
mentioned,  elsewhere,  and  which,  therefore,  do  not  need 
detailed  treatment  in  this  place.  Such  are  the  different 
methods  in  teaching,  to  which  Chapter  IV.  is  devoted,  the 
different  plan  in  raising  the  taxation  for  school  purposes  and 
the  differences  in  curricula.  But  two  points  may  well  be 
emphasised,  though  they  are  clear  enough  to  need  no  ex- 
planation. 


General  Introduction  27 

The  first  is  the  contrast  that  arises  through  the  fact  that 
the  public  elementary  school  there  is  historically  the  com- 
mon school,  used  by  all  sections  of  the  people,  common  to 
all ;  and  not,  as  historically  with  us,  a  school  originally 
founded  by  benevolent  persons  and  societies  for  the  children 
of  the  poor.  This  state  of  things  is  of  course  passing  in 
England,  and  the  public  elementary  school  is  now  attended 
by  many  children  of  the  comfortable  classes,  especially 
when  the  buildings  and  equipment  are  good,  and  the  teach- 
ing modern.  We  are  moving  in  the  direction  of  the 
American  custom,  but  there  is  still  a  marked  contrast 
difficult  to  describe  and  analyse,  but  felt  at  once.  The 
American  school  is  like  the  Scotch  or  Swiss  school ;  it  is 
for  everyone,  it  is  national  and  not  sectional.  This  difference 
may  be  indicated  by  the  following  quotations  from  President 
Eliot's  book,  Educational  Reform,  One  cannot  imagine 
our  most  distinguished  university  leader — though  we  have 
indeed  none  occupying  such  a  place  as  does  the  President 
of  Harvard — speaking  thus  of  an  English  Board  School : 
"  The  fundamental  object  of  democratic  education  is  to  lift 
the  whole  population  to  a  higher  plane  of  intelligence, 
conduct  and  happiness ".  "  The  schools  should  be  a 
vehicle  of  daily  enjoyment,  and  the  teacher  should  be  to 
the  child  a  minister  of  joy."  "  Reading,  writing  and 
arithmetic  are  not  the  goal  of  popular  education." 

The  other  difference  is  in  the  absence  of  religious  instruc- 
tion, in  many  cases  even  of  religious  observance,  in  American 
public  schools.  This  has  arisen  historically  also.  When 
America  had  to  deal  with  the  problems  we  are  now  facing 
in  England  as  to  religious  instruction  in  State-supported 
schools  they  took  the  easiest  way  out,  the  secular  solution 
as  we  call  it  Dr.  N.  Murray  Butler  thus  sketches  what 
occurred : — 

When  the  State-supported  school  came  into  existence,  this 
state  of  religious  diversity  found  expression  in  dissatisfaction 


28     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

with  the  teaching,  under  State  auspices,  of  any  one  form  of 
religious  belief.  The  first  step  toward  the  removal  of  this  dis- 
satisfaction was  >to  reduce  religious  teaching  to  the  lowest  pos- 
sible terms  ;  and  these  were  found  in  the  reading  of  the  Bible, 
the  recitation  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  and  the  singing  of  a  de- 
votional hymn  at  the  opening  of  the  daily  school  exercise.  But 
even  this  gave  rise  to  complaint.  Discussions  arose  as  to 
whether  a  single  version  of  the  Bible  must  be  used  in  these 
readings,  or  whether  any  version  chosen  by  the  reader  might  be 
read.  A  still  more  extreme  view  insisted  that  the  Bible  itself 
was  a  sectarian  book,  and  that  the  non-Christian  portion  of  the 
community,  no  matter  how  small  numerically,  were  subjected  to 
violation  of  their  liberties  and  their  rights,  when  any  portion  of 
the  public  funds  was  used  to  present  Christian  doctrine  to 
school  children,  even  in  this  merely  incidental  way.  The  view 
that  the  State-supported  schools  must  refrain  absolutely  from 
exerting  any  religious  influence,  however  small,  is  one  which 
has  found  wide  favour  among  the  American  people  (Educational 
Review,  1899,  p.  428). 


III. 

In  the  previous  section  we  have  endeavoured  to  contrast 
English  and  American  education  without  entering  into 
the  question  of  the  respective  merits  of  the  two  systems. 
There  are,  however,  certain  qualities  in  the  American 
system  which  should  be  described,  certain  points  in  which 
American  education  is  distinctly  in  advance  of  ours,  even 
allowing  for  national  differences  of  need,  history,  and  social 
organisation.  The  first  of  these  may  be  termed  catholicity. 
No  one  is  shut  out  from  the  advantages  of  education, 
through  poverty,  sex,  or  race.1  This  merit  is  of  course 
generally  recognised  ;  it  is  one  reason  for  the  pride  Ameri- 
cans have  in  the  free  common  school.2  With  justice  they 
consider  that  in  this  respect  their  education  is  superior 

1 "  Another  point  that  always  seems  to  fall  outside  the  comprehension 
of  a  genuine  product  of  the  old-world  school  system  is  the  fundamental 
proposition  of  democracy  that  by  granting  equal  opportunities  in  and 
through  education  to  all  the  children  of  the  people,  society  shall  be  able 
to  organise  itself  into  a  self-controlled,  coherent,  self-perpetuating  body ; 
and  also  the  unavoidable  corollary,  that  on  the  basis  of  the  ability  and 
disposition  to  make  righteous  use  of  such  opportunities,  all  places  in  the 
democracy  shall  be  open  to  all  the  children  of  all  the  people.  This  pro- 
position rests  upon  the  theory  that  only  out  of  such  natural  adjustments 
of  people,  made  under  increasing  enlightenment,  can  mankind  ever  hope 
to  enjoy  a  stable  and  well-balanced,  though  not  fixed,  but  sensitive  and 
self-compensating  social  condition  "  (Wilbur  S.  Jackman,  Educational 
Review,  June,  1900). 

a"  The  national  high  schools  of  America  do,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  prepare 
pupils  just  as  efficiently  for  the  university  as  do  the  English  institutions, 
while  the  great  system  of  common  schools  secures  for  the  mass  of  the 
people  a  much  better  education  than  is  given  in  England  to  the  same 
classes"  (The  Twentieth  Century  American,  p.  176). 

29 


30     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

even  to  that  of  Germany ;  and  their  superiority  to  Eng- 
land they  somewhat  exaggerate,  since  the  recent  develop- 
ment and  extension  of  education  in  England  are  not 
generally  known.  Americans  not  unnaturally  over-empha- 
sise the  influence  of  social  class  and  aristocratic  distinctions 
in  England,  and  they  often  know  little  of  democratic  in- 
dustrial areas  like  S.E.  Lancashire  and  the  West  Riding 
of  Yorkshire,  where  such  influences  are  at  a  minimum. 
But,  even  allowing  for  modern  reforms,  the  number  of 
scholarships  from  elementary  schools  to  places  of  higher 
education,  the  reality  of  the  education  ladder  to  the  uni- 
versity, the  opening  of  degrees  to  women,  and  the  recent 
extension  of  secondary  education  since  the  Act  of  1902, 
America  is  still  in  advance  of  England  in  the  universality 
of  her  educational  provision.  With  us  the  scholarship 
child  must  show  ability  at  twelve  years  of  age,  and  must 
be  able  to  pass  examinations ;  there  is  no  chance  for  those 
who  develop  late,  for  the  boy  of  slow  growth  and  limited 
means  who  is  distanced  in  the  Junior  Scholarship  competi- 
tion by  the  quick,  docile  child,  that  by  sixteen  years  of 
age  has  gone  off,  and  who  at  eighteen  is  seen  to  be  quite 
unworthy  of  higher  education. 

The  American  system  of  free  secondary  schools,  and, 
in  the  West,  of  State  universities,  makes  it  possible  for 
every  type  of  student  to  receive  higher  educatioa  In  the 
case  of  women  and  girls  also,  there  is  more  opportunity 
than  with  us,  not  so  much  because  there  is  more  provision 
for  them,  though  this  is  of  course  true,  since  America  has 
many  large,  wealthy  and  flourishing  separate  women's 
colleges,  as  well  as  the  opportunities  in  co-educational  in- 
stitutions ;  it  is  rather  that  public  opinion,  and  the  general 
tone  of  society,  consider  it  natural  and  right  for  girls  to 
be  highly  educated.  This  difference  is  due  to  historical 
causes  and  to  the  greater  respect  and  attention  paid  to 
women  in  the  United  States.  Furthermore,  the  universal 


General  Introduction  31 

spirit  of  democracy,  together  with  the  universal  belief  in 
education,  renders  impossible  the  view  that  any  one  can 
possibly  be  educated  above  his  or  her  station  in  life.  Such 
an  idea  would  hardly  be  expressed  in  America,  even  if 
people  believed  it;  it  would  be  too  shocking  to  public 
sentiment.  Although  there  is  a  certain  social  discrimina- 
tion against  persons  of  colour,  they  share  to  the  full  all  the 
advantages  of  public  education.  One  of  the  difficulties 
which  the  advocates  of  trade  schools  and  industrial  educa- 
tion have  to  face,  is  that  the  idea  of  specialised  instruction 
for  people  in  a  particular  rank  is  contrary  to  American 
sentiment. 

There  results  further  from  this  universality  of  education 
in  a  democratic  community  an  extraordinarily  high  level 
of  general  intelligence  and  self-respect,  which  is  one  of  the 
pleasantest  features  of  American  life  to  an  Englishwoman. 
We  are  accustomed  to  see  everywhere  in  public  places 
dirty,  ragged,  and  ill-mannered  women  and  children,  to 
expect,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  the  majority  of  our 
fellow-citizens  will  not  know  how  to  speak  the  king's 
English,  and  that  a  large  number  of  people  in  many  parts 
of  the  country  will  show  by  their  manner  and  bearing  how 
conscious  they  are  of  their  own  social  inferiority.  Ameri- 
can life  is,  by  contrast,  full  of  joy,1  the  joy  of  being  among 
equals.  This  general,  diffused  well-being,  shown  especially 
in  the  appearance  and  behaviour  of  women  and  children, 
is,  of  course,  not  only  due  to  education,  but  to  the  material 
wealth  of  the  country  and  the  industry  of  the  people. 
There  are  many  work-people,  however,  in  our  industrial 
districts  at  home  who  can  earn  good  wages,  and  seem  to 
prefer  to  be  rough  and  dirty.  But  in  America  the  personal 
self-respect,  the  confidence  of  manner,  the  dainty  neatness 

1  Bryce,  American  Commonwealth,  p.  692,  says :  "  Life  in  America  is  in 
most  ways  pleasanter,  easier,  simpler  than  in  Europe ;  it  floats  in  a  sense 
of  happiness  like  that  of  a  radiant  summer  morning  ". 


32     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

of  feminine  dress,  and  the  absence  of  vulgar  errors  in  speech, 
all  these  are  surely  the  product  of  a  universal  system  of  edu- 
cation.1 Where  in  England  there  has  been  an  educational 
system  of  reasonable  efficiency  since  1870,  similar  improve- 
ment, though  not  alas !  to  so  great  an  extent,  is  observed, 
as  for  instance  among  the  London  working-class  people 
on  summer  Sundays  and  public  holidays. 

Another  excellence  has  also  already  been  mentioned,  the 
zeal  and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  American  people  for  educa- 
tion ;  here  it  is  enough  to  indicate  some  of  the  superiorities 
which  arise  through  its  action.  We  have  already  alluded 
to  the  greater  ease  of  discipline  in  schools,  to  the  spirit  of 
self-reliant  work  on  the  part  of  the  pupils  ;  this  is  true  for 
elementary  schools,  as  well  as  for  secondary.  That  the 
wage-earner  should  dislike  and  disapprove  of  the  school, 
should  look  upon  the  school  authorities  as  enemies,  is  un- 
intelligible to  the  American ;  he  can  hardly  believe  it. 
The  foreign  immigrant  as  well  as  the  native  American 
believes  in  sending  his  child  to  school,  and  the  common 
school  is  an  object  of  respect  and  a  centre  of  unity  to  the 
citizens  generally.  This  of  course  makes  the  hard  task  of 
the  teacher  very  much  easier  and  more  effective  than  it  is 
as  yet  in  our  public  elementary  schools,  though  among  the 
more  intelligent  of  our  working-men  there  is  growing  up  a 
belief  in  and  a  demand  for  education. 

The  extraordinary  excellence  of  the  building  and  equip- 
ment of  schools,  one  of  the  most  marked  superiorities  of 

1(1  The  great  difference  with  the  American  show  being  that  in  the 
United  States  every  one  is,  for  the  lubrication  of  the  general  machinery, 
practically  in  everything,  whereas  in  Europe  mostly  it  is  only  certain 
people  who  are  in  anything"  (Henry  James,  The  American  Scene,  p. 

103). 

"  The  vast  category  of  those  ubiquitous  children  of  the  public  schools 
who  occupy  everywhere  in  the  United  States  so  much  of  the  forefront  of 
the  stage,  and  at  the  sight  of  whose  so  remarkably  clad  and  shod  condi- 
tion the  brooding  analyst  could  clap  in  private  the  most  reactionary 
hands  "  (ibid.,  p.  179). 


General  Introduction  33 

America  to  England,  may  perhaps  best  be  mentioned 
under  this  heading,  but  nothing  can  give  adequately  the 
impression  that  an  actual  visit  does.  When  one  knows  from 
bitter  experience  the  mean,  wretched,  too  often  insanitary 
buildings  of  some  public  elementary  schools  in  our  great 
cities,  and  the  starving  of  the  secondary  schools  in  ap- 
paratus, decoration,  maps,  books  and  equipment,  because 
of  the  scanty  resources  available  even  in  the  better  schools, 
one  is  ashamed  of  one's  country.  In  America  the  school  is 
often  the  best  building  in  the  place ;  no  expense  is  spared, 
not  only  in  such  essentials  as  space,  light,  heating  and  ven- 
tilation, desks  and  blackboards,  but  in  beautiful  woodwork, 
pictures  and  statues,  roomy  halls  and  wide  staircases.  The 
new  McKinley  High  School  at  St.  Louis,  the  new  group, 
of  which  the  Girls'  Latin  School  is  the  most  important  part, 
in  Boston,  the  Southern  Manual  Training  High  School  for 
boys  at  Philadelphia,  all  paid  for  out  of  the  rates,  and  last, 
but  not  least,  the  all-but-perfect  buildings  of  the  Horace 
Manri  Schools  on  1 2Oth  Street,  in  Broadway,  New  York, 
the  gifts  of  private  individuals — these  are  models  of  what 
a  school  building  ought  to  be,  and  are  testimonies,  known 
and  read  of  all  men,  to  what  Americans  think  of  educa- 
tion. 

Another  result  of  this  general  zeal,  acting  for  so  long 
a  time,  is  the  very  close  relation  between  primary  and 
secondary  schools,  the  unity  of  education  and  of  the  teaching 
profession.  The  deplorable  gulf  which  exists  in  England, 
has  never  formed  itself  there,  though  there  is  a  break  be- 
tween the  public  high  school  and  the  college.  The  numbers 
in  secondary  schools  are,  as  is  very  well  known,  much 
greater  in  proportion  to  the  population  than  they  are  with 
us,  even  to-day.  In  some  New  England  communities 
there  are  over  20  per  1,000  receiving  instruction  in  the 
public  high  schools.  The  way  in  which  small  Western 
towns  establish  high  schools  is  also  very  remarkable ;  a 

3 


34     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

town  of  2,000  people  in  Wisconsin,  which  we  should  call  a 
village,  has  recently  put  up  a  costly  building  for  this  pur- 
pose. The  large  sums  of  money  given  by  wealthy  persons 
for  the  foundation  and  support  of  colleges,  and  other  insti- 
tutions of  higher  education,  form  another  illustration  of 
American  enthusiasm.  Most  striking  of  all  perhaps  is  the 
devotion  and  self-sacrifice,  the  industry  and  courage  of  the 
young  people  who  work  their  way  through  school  and 
college,  a  thing  unknown  and  perhaps  impossible  in  Eng- 
land. At  any  college  one  comes  across  young  men  students 
who,  e.g.,  act  as  stokers  morning  and  evening  for  the  steam- 
heating  apparatus  that  warms  every  American  house,  and 
who,  thus  earning  enough  for  their  maintenance,  manage  to 
attend  fifteen  lectures  a  week  and  get  through  their  private 
reading.  Girl  students  in  the  women's  hostels  wait  at 
table  on  their  fellows,  and  add  to  their  earnings  by  similar 
work  in  the  summer  at  hotels.  Wages  are  of  course  higher, 
while  simple  food  is  little  dearer  than  with  us.  It  is  the 
air  and  the  climate,  as  well  as  their  wonderful  courage  and 
resolution,  which  enable  the  young  people  to  endure  the 
strain. 

Our  fourth  point,  the  self-reliance  of  students,  may 
well  be  treated  at  this  stage ;  to  a  teacher  it  is  one  of  the 
marked  superiorities  of  American  schools.1  It  is  much  to 
be  wished  that  we  could  make  our  pupils  self-reliant,  could 
induce  them  to  use  libraries  more,  and  to  get  up  their  work 
for  themselves.  Boys,  of  course,  when  they  are  willing  to 
work,  do  show  self-reliance,  but  the  English  girls'  schools 
have  been  forced  into  giving  pupils  far  too  much  help. 
There  are  at  least  two  causes  for  this,  the  influence  of  the 
examination  system,  and  the  danger  of  over-pressure,  and 

1 "  They  have  no  standard  for  measuring,  that  remarkable  attribute  of 
the  American  character,  which  is  the  greatest  of  the  national  assets,  the 
combination  of  self-reliance  and  resourceful  ingenuity  which  seems  to 
make  the  individual  American  equal  to  almost  any  fortune  "  (The  Twentieth 
Century  American,  p.  67). 


General  Introduction  35 

injury  to  health,  if  girls  are  left  to  work  up  a  subject 
alone.  In  America  a  great  deal  more  home-work  is  done 
than  with  us,  though  not  so  much  written  work  is  ex- 
pected ;  home  study  is  taken  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
one  does  not  hear  the  objections  either  from  medical  men, 
or  from  the  homes,  which  are  so  familiar  in  England.  One 
reason  for  this  is  perhaps  the  very  self-reliance  of  the 
American  child,  who  neither  worries  other  people  nor 
himself,  but  gets  through  his  work  in  a  steady,  sensible 
way,  and  who  does  not  inevitably  get  into  trouble  if  he 
happens  to  leave  it.1  One  cannot  but  wish  that  English 
teachers  could  take  the  American  attitude,  and  let  the 
children  be  freer,  and  therefore  more  self-reliant  over  work 
that  they  do  by  themselves. 

The  preceding  points  are  fairly  obvious  at  a  very  early 
stage  in  the  study  of  American  education  ;  the  two  which 
remain  still  to  be  described  do  not  sautent  aux  yeux  so 
easily,  and  they  are  not  so  easily  described  or  apprehended. 
Let  us  endeavour  at  least  to  suggest  them.  Americans 
believe  in  a  liberal  education ;  their  school  tradition  is  to 
study  subjects  as  humanising  influences,  as  part  of  the 
right  of  a  human  being  as  such.  Even  among  very  primi- 
tive communities  with  them  the  ideal  of  education  has  been 
the  training  of  the  man  or  woman,  not  of  the  future 
farmer,  clerk,  or  seamstress.  Probably  the  religious  in- 
fluences under  which  the  American  colonies  were  founded 
had  a  good  deal  to  do  with  this  attitude  of  mind  ;  it  may 
be  seen  also  in  Scotland,  where  Latin,  the  humanistic 
subject,  has  long  been  studied  for  its  own  sake  by  plough- 
boys  and  quarry  men.  A  clear  indication  of  the  American 
attitude  is  seen  in  the  absence  of  sewing  from  the  curriculum 

1 "  That  collective  alertness  of  bright-eyed,  slight-limbed,  clear-voiced 
youth,  without  a  doubt  in  the  world  and  without  a  conviction ;  .  .  .  the 
confidence  and  the  innocence,  are  those  of  children  whose  world  has  ever 
been  a  safe  one"  (Henry  James,  The  American  Scene,  p.  170). 

3* 


36     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

of  the  common  school  as  compared  with  the  insistence  of 
this  subject  for  girls  in  the  public  elementary  schools  in 
England.  One  knows  how  our  elementary  education  for 
girls  began  in  the  eighteenth  century  with  the  charity 
and  dame  schools,  where  they  were  taught  above  all  to 
sew,  and  where  reading  was  only  thought  necessary  be- 
cause of  the  importance  of  the  reading  of  Holy  Scripture. 
In  America,  as  soon  as  girls  began  to  have  an  education 
at  all,  it  was,  though  very  limited,  the  general  liberal 
education  their  brothers  had  in  the  common  school.  To- 
day Latin  is  a  popular  subject  with  all  classes  of  the 
population. 

The  last  excellence  of  American  education  which  we 
should  wish  to  indicate  is,  we  fear,  almost  impossible  to 
describe ;  it  is  a  certain  difference  in  the  spirit  of  teachers 
and  educators  generally.  One  feels  this  without  knowing 
exactly  in  what  it  consists,  and  perhaps,  like  the  delicate 
aroma  of  real  China  tea,  this  impression  cannot  survive 
the  ocean  passage,  and  be  brought  across  to  England.  It 
is,  however,  evident  in  American  literature  when  one  has 
learnt  to  know  it  in  the  country  itself.  One  part  of  it 
can  be  definitely  enunciated  ;  the  teachers  there  have  the 
professional  confidence  that  clergy  and  naval  men  have 
in  England ;  they  are  a  service.  Individuals  among  us 
have  as  much  power  and  influence  as  individual  American 
teachers,  and  certainly  more  authority,  and  the  legal  security 
of  the  American  teacher  is  not  so  great  as  that  of  an  English 
one.  But  they  belong  to  a  profession  which  is  respected 
and  considered  as  a  means  of  national  defence,  like  the 
Navy  here.  Like  other  Americans,  they  are  full  of  hope 
and  faith ; l  they  know  that  the  rising  tide  of  public  con- 

1 "  The  particular  look  of  the  clear  course  and  large  opportunity  ahead, 
which,  when  taken  in  conjunction  with  all  the  will  to  live,  all  the  money 
to  spend,  all  the  knowledge  to  acquire  and  apply,  seems  to  marshal  the 
material  possibilities  in  glittering,  illimitable  ranks  "  (The  American  Scene, 
p.  247). 


General  Introduction  37 

fidence  is  with  them.  The  very  fact  that  they  are  paid 
much  less  than  other  Americans,  less  probably  in  propor- 
tion than  teachers  here,  helps  to  make  them  a  service  in 
a  country  otherwise  given  up  to  money-making.  This 
difference  of  spirit  is  nowhere  so  fully  evident,  in  the 
writer's  experience,  as  in  Teachers'  College,  Columbia 
University;  our  English  departments  of  education  must 
needs  in  this  day  of  small  things  bear  themselves  very 
differently. 

It  will  be  observed  that  in  all  these  five  points  England 
is  advancing  in  the  direction  indicated  by  American  ex- 
cellence; these  superiorities  are  in  part  due  to  the  fact 
that  their  system  is  older  than  ours ;  that  they  are  at  a 
further  stage  of  evolution.  It  is  interesting  to  read  in 
older  works  on  American  education  that  years  ago  they 
went  through  some  of  the  difficulties  with  which  we  have 
to-day  to  struggle.  It  is  the  task  of  England  in  this 
generation  to  retain  the  good  she  has  in  her  system,  and 
to  develop  and  increase  the  growing  efforts  made  by  some 
sections  of  the  community  to  overtake  the  countries  that 
are  at  present  in  advance  of  her. 


IV. 

In  the  preceding  section  we  have  endeavoured  to  sketch 
the  qualities  in  which  American  schools  appear  stronger 
than  English ;  it  is  now  only  fair  to  attempt  to  give  the 
other  side,  and  suggest,  with  all  sympathy  and  respect  for 
America,  where  some  weak  points  of  their  system  are  to 
be  found,  and  where  they  could  learn  from  us.  The  first 
of  these  concerns  what  is  in  the  opinion  of  all  authorities 
the  paramount  merit  of  English  education,  its  success  in 
the  training  of  character  and  the  development  of  public 
spirit  and  corporate  life.  We  have  made  this  our  chief 
aim,  and  have  sacrificed  much  to  it.  But  our  results  have 
been  worth  the  sacrifice.  It  is  above  all,  as  every  one 
knows,  in  our  great  public  schools  for  boys  that  this  quality 
is  most  marked ;  but  in  the  modern  city  day  schools  the 
spirit  of  Arnold  has  spread,  and  the  new  municipal  second- 
ary schools  are  following  in  the  same  road.  The  girls' 
schools,  too,  the  creation  of  the  last  fifty  years,  have  formed 
for  themselves  a  similar  tradition,  and  count  intellectual 
success  a  poor  thing  compared  with  moral  power.  Now 
the  American  school,  since  it  is  efficiently  worked  by 
earnest  and  honourable  teachers,  is  of  course  an  agency  for 
the  training  of  character,  and  the  personal  influence  of  the 
teacher  necessarily  counts  there,  as  here.1  But  as  one  goes 
in  and  out  of  the  schools  and  talks  with  American  colleagues, 

1  Probably  a  stranger  underrates,  in  these  pages,  the  amount  of  moral 
training  given  in  American  schools  indirectly ;  the  statement  here  is  only 
an  impression,  and  may  be  inaccurate. 

38 


General  Introduction  39 

and  reads  records,  one  cannot  but  feel  that  there  is  nothing 
like  as  much  done  in  the  direction  of  what  we  call  "  look- 
ing after  "  and  "  getting  at "  the  boys  and  girls  as  with  us. 
It  is  not  part  of  the  ideal ;  the  very  fact  that  the  words 
master  and  mistress  are  not  used,  are,  indeed,  considered 
somewhat  extraordinary  and  unsuitable,  speaks  volumes 
for  the  different  attitude  of  (say)  the  teacher  in  the  depart- 
ment of  mathematics  in  the  faculty  of  an  American  high 
school,  and  the  form  master  or  mistress  on  the  staff  in 
England.  The  former  is  there  in  the  first  instance  to  con- 
duct recitations  in  geometry  and  algebra,  the  latter  is 
there  to  make  Tom  Brown  or  Mary  Smith  go  in  the  right 
road,  mathematics,  among  other  things,  being  an  instru- 
ment for  the  purpose.  We  take  upon  ourselves  a  personal 
responsibility,  we  exercise  a  personal  authority  which  in 
America  would  be  inconsistent  with  the  freedom  of  the  in- 
dividual, and  the  social  and  legal  equality  of  all.  Corpo- 
rate life,  too,  is  nothing  like  as  strong  in  an  American  high 
school  as  it  is  even  in  the  corresponding  day  school  in 
England ;  there  is  practically  nothing  of  the  system  of 
monitors  and  prefects  which  is  so  important  a  part  of 
character  training  with  us.1  Americans  say  that  their  young 
people  would  not  stand  it,  and  the  prefects  would  grudge 
the  extra  time  and  effort,  which  would  have  to  be  taken 
away  either  from  their  studies  or  their  pleasures.  One  can- 
not help  thinking  that  if  there  were  more  corporate  life 
in  the  American  school,  American  citizens  would  feel  a 
greater  responsibility  in  taking  their  share  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  nation.  Our  people  learn  politics  in  the  VI. 
Form  and  on  the  playing  field. 

There  is  of  late  some  development  of  games  and  of 
school  societies  in  American  public  high  schools,  but 
nothing  like  to  the  same  extent  as  with  us,  and,  as  every 

1  Their  systems  of  school  self-government  are  quite  different  in  char- 
acter. 


40     Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

one  knows,  American  interest  in  school  and  college  ath- 
letics tends  to  concentrate  itself  on  the  winning  of  games 
by  the  champion  team  in  conflicts  with  other  schools,  rather 
than  on  the  playing  of  games  more  or  less  by  everybody. 
The  need  for  social  life,  which  is,  of  course,  natural  to  young 
people,  is  expressing  itself  in  some  Western  cities  at  present 
by  an  attempt  to  introduce  secret  Greek-letter  fraternities 
into  the  school,  on  the  model  of  those  which  have  long 
played  such  an  important  part  in  the  life  of  American 
colleges.  They  are  obviously  unsuited  to  school  conditions 
and  have  been  in  many  cases  forbidden.  But  as  American 
principals  of  schools  recognise,  it  is  of  no  use  forbidding 
them  without  putting  something  better  in  their  place ;  the 
social  intercourse  outside  the  classroom  of  teachers  and 
pupils  together  which  we  in  England  know  so  well. 

In  the  Horace  Mann  University  School,  in  New  York,  a 
very  great  deal  is  done  in  this  direction ; l  here  also  are  to 
be  perceived  the  beginnings  of  what  we  should  call  a  Form 
system,  a  teacher  being  responsible  for  a  certain  number  of 
boys  and  girls  who  belong  to  a  particular  room.  In  other 
private  schools,  such  as  the  Mary  Institute,  in  St.  Louis,  a 
similar  system  often  is  found,  but  in  the  public  school  if  it 
appears  at  all  in  germ,  the  number  of  pupils  in  charge  of  a 
particular  teacher  is  far  too  great  for  any  of  the  real  per- 
sonal influence,  as  we  know  it,  that  a  form  master  or  mis- 
tress has  to  be  exercised. 

How  far  our  English  ways  in  training  character  at  school 
could  be  adapted  to  American  needs  and  conditions  is  a 
matter  on  which  a  stranger  cannot  possibly  judge ;  cer- 
tainly some  of  them  would  be  resented  by  the  American 
pupil  and  the  American  parent,  and  possibly  by  the 
American  teacher,  but  we  would  suggest  they  are  worthy 
of  study  by  the  American  observer  in  England. 

The  next  point  of  weakness  is  not  merely  a  deficiency, 

1  See  Teachers'  College  Record. 


General  Introduction  41 

a  place  where  more  ought  to  be  done  than  is  actually 
being  done,  but  it  is  a  definite  evil  which  the  writer  cannot 
but  think  is  causing  serious  injury  to  American  education. 
It  is  the  excess  of  system  in  the  public  organisation, 
schemes,  and  rules,  as  drawn  up  and  worked  by  local 
education  authorities  and  their  officials.  There  is  very 
little  trouble  taken  to  provide  for  the  individual,  all  the 
pupils  have  to  advance  in  a  regular  line.  Americans 
themselves  recognise  this  fault.  Mr.  W.  A.  Baldwin, 
State  Normal  School,  Hyannis,  Mass.,  writes  recently: — 

It  has  seemed  to  us  as  though  the  very  marked  modern  tendency 
to  combination,  organisation  and  systematisation — the  so-called 
factory  system — has  been  getting  a  firmer  and  firmer  grip  upon 
our  graded  schools.  All  of  the  individuality  and  life  is  being 
systematised  out  of  our  children,  and  they  are  becoming  mere 
automatons,  sitting,  for  the  most  part,  quietly  at  their  desks, 
and  moving,  when  they  do  move,  together  at  the  tap  of  the 
bell.  Now  we  desire  to  change  all  this.  Our  motto,  as  has 
been  said,  is  "  A  live  boy  in  a  live  school  ". 

In  our  immense  graded  schools  there  is  no  mercy  for  the 
weakly,  it  is  a  forced  march,  and  those  who  cannot  keep  up 
must  fall  out  (Educational  Review,  September,  1903,  p.  185). 

It  is  not  only  the  children,  however,  who  suffer,  the 
teachers  do  also ;  very  little  initiative  is  left  to  them  in  the 
public  school  organisation;  curricula,  text-books,  even 
methods  of  teaching  are  settled  by  the  committee  and  the 
superintendent.  Officials  are  supreme,  and  the  teacher 
is  often  little  better  than  a  cog  in  a  machine.  All  this 
must  have  the  effect  of  driving  the  best  men  out  of  the 
profession  ;  even  a  very  small  personal  experience  brought 
before  one  instances  where  first-rate  men  had  been  driven 
out,  or  had  found  the  bondage  too  hard  to  bear  and  had 
gone  into  private  schools.  Certainly  no  English  head  of 
a  public  high  school  would  think  the  corresponding  Ameri- 


42     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

can  post  worth  having,  when  there  is  neither  freedom  of 
experiment,  of  initiative,  or  of  organisation,  nor  a  tradition 
of  personal  influence  in  the  development  of  character.  One 
would  have  much  more  scope  outside  in  a  private  school. 

It  may  be,  of  course,  that  this  excessive  system,  this 
rigidity  and  bondage  may  be  inseparable  from  an  educa- 
tional system  fully  organised  and  controlled  by  the  State ; 
if  so,  we  may  pray  never  to  have  such  a  system  in  England. 
Let  us  hope,  however,  that  we,  with  our  English  instinct 
for  a  via  media,  may  find  some  compromise  between  anarchy 
and  despotism  in  our  schools,  as  we  have  found  it  in  our 
Government. 

A  third  weakness  in  American  education,  as  we  think  it, 
is  the  natural  outcome  of  democratic  feeling,  and  is  not  in 
American  eyes  necessarily  a  weakness  at  all. 

It  results  from  their  principle,  to  which  reference  is  made 
on  page  19,  of  providing  higher  education  for  the  mass, 
and  not  merely  for  the  exceptionally  able  pupils.  Nothing 
is  done  to  select  these  at  an  early  age,  when  they  show 
promise  on  particular  lines,  to  develop  them  and  train 
them  thus  to  high  scholarship.  If  Americans  chose  to  do 
this  they  would  probably  get  work  of  very  much  higher 
standard  (in  the  English  sense)  at  the  top  of  their  schools. 
Such  pupils  would  go  on  to  college  ready  to  do  good 
work  in  one  or  two  subjects.  This,  however,  is  not  con- 
templated by  the  American  college  system,  which,  as  we 
have  said,  is  one  of  broad,  general  education.  They  would 
consider  our  plan  premature  specialisation,  as  of  course  it 
is  sometimes ;  but  what  we  do  at  our  best  is  to  give  the 
exceptional  boy  or  girl  a  chance  to  get  on  faster  than 
others,  and  so  develop  special  powers.  There  is  no  pro- 
vision whatever  for  this  in  an  ordinary  American  public 
school ;  if  a  hundred  pupils  begin  Latin  in  September 
in  (say)  three  divisions,  they  are  all  kept  at  the  same  rate 
through  the  year.  We  should  reclassify  them  at  Christ- 


General  Introduction  43 

mas,  if  not  earlier,  and  have  a  fast  pack,  a  middle  average 
division,  and  a  slow  tail,  who  would  need  special  care. 
Thus  the  first  set  might  do  twice  as  much  Latin  as  the 
third. 

This  result,  which  we  think  excellent,  would  to  many 
Americans  be  quite  improper,  that  the  one  boy  should 
learn  at  public  cost  twice  as  much  Latin  as  another  in  a 
year.  We  came  across  at  least  one  case  where  a  head- 
master, familiar  with  the  English  system,  endeavoured  to 
introduce  some  of  this  reclassification,  and  it  was  stopped 
by  authority  as  contrary  to  American  democratic  principles. 

The  same  rule  obtains  at  college ;  fundamental  with  us 
is  the  difference  between  the  pass  man  and  the  honours 
man,  and  those  who  have  been  to  an  English  university 
know  how  very  real  and  important  this  distinction  is,  and 
how  essential  to  some  of  the  best  work  that  the  university 
does.  It  is  essential  because  it  corresponds  to  a  natural 
difference. 

That  the  complete  elective  system  at  Harvard  can  be 
made  to  work  in  this  direction  is  not  the  least  of  its  many 
merits ;  it  is  deeply  significant  of  the  authority  and  grasp 
of  Harvard's  president  in  educational  thought,  that  it  should 
have  worked  out  a  system  of  a  specialised  honours  course 
to  meet  the  need  of  special  cultivation  for  the  ablest  in- 
telligences. 

European  writers  on  America  have  often  noticed  the 
comparative  scarcity  of  the  highest  type  of  creative  in- 
tellectual power  among  so  large  and  intelligent  a  population, 
selected  and  mixed  by  immigration  and  possessing  for  so 
long  the  advantages  of  widely  diffused  education.  Bryce 
(American  Commonwealth,  chaps,  cv.,  cvi.,  cvii.)  gives 
various  reasons  for  this  phenomenon,  which  will,  he  thinks, 
not  appear  later,  when  Americans  are  less  absorbed  in  the 
material  conquest  and  development  of  their  enormous  and 
wealthy  land.  But  one  feels  that  below  the  surface  the 


44     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

author  is  thinking  of  the  subtle  effect  of  democracy  and 
social  and  political  equality  in  reducing  all  to  a  common 
level.  It  may  be  that  no  educational  system  would  make 
any  difference  to  the  genius  :  Shakespeare  and  Dante, 
Descartes  and  Darwin,  would  have  come  to  the  front  any- 
how. So  perhaps  the  absence  in  America  of  special  cul- 
tivation for  the  very  best  intellects  from  the  earliest  stages 
may  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  comparative  scarcity  of 
the  highest  creative  genius  there.  But  when  one  notices 
the  ways  of  the  schools  one  cannot  but  wonder  whether 
there  is  not  some  connection  between  the  two  phenomena. 
If  they  sifted  out  their  ablest  youths  and  pushed  them  on 
fast  to  the  most  advanced  university  work,  as  we  have  been 
doing  more  or  less  for  so  many  years,  would  they  not  provide 
a  milieu  in  which  an  intenser  heat  of  intellectual  activity 
might  generate  genius  to  a  greater  degree  ?  They  have 
inherited  all  that  is  best  in  the  culture  and  civilisation  of 
the  Old  World ;  they  are  a  chosen  people,  sprung  from  the 
most  vigorous  adventurers  of  the  strongest  European  races. 
The  period  of  discovery  and  settlement  is  over ;  they  ought 
to  produce  thinkers,  artists,  poets,  philosophers,  creative 
powers  in  every  intellectual  sphere.  Can  it  be  the  fault  of 
their  education  that  as  yet  they  do  not  ?  Or  is  it  that  man 
cannot  at  will  produce  the  genius  ?  That  is  for  "  the  wind 
that  bloweth  where  it  listeth  ". 

The  American  college  in  general  ignores  the  difference 
between  one  grade  of  ability  and  another ;  all  the  men  go 
along  together,  and  what  we  call  the  honours  man  has  to 
take  post-graduate  work  later  on.  The  present  writer 
would  venture  to  suggest  that  many  of  the  difficulties  in 
the  present  organisation  of  higher  education  in  American 
colleges  would  be  simplified,  if  not  altogether  cleared  away, 
by  adopting  the  English  principle  of  an  honours  course, 
which  will  give  the  really  able  people  a  chance  of  cultivating 
their  powers. 


General  Introduction  45 

To  one  who  loves  America  and  is  deeply  grateful  for 
much  kindness  received  there,  these  criticisms  have  not 
been  easy  to  make.  They  would  not  have  been  ventured, 
but  that  many  thoughtful  Americans  themselves  make  or 
acknowledge  them,  and  thus  there  cannot,  it  is  hoped,  be 
either  personal  prejudice  or  discourtesy  involved.  These 
impressions  of  shortcomings  are,  however,  very  strong,  and 
must  in  truth  be  mentioned.  One,  the  excess  of  system, 
is  a  warning  to  ourselves ;  for  the  other  two,  while  perhaps 
we  may  feel  not  unjustifiable  pride  in  the  way  our  schools 
have  trained  character  and  developed  scholarship,  we  may 
be  the  more  glad  that  our  education  should  have  at  least 
some  merits  which  are  worthy  of  the  study  of  those  from 
whom  we  ourselves  can  learn  so  much.1 

1 "  England  stands  half-way,  as  it  were,  between  the  American  and  the 
German  ideals.  She  seeks  to  combine  freedom  and  authority ;  experiment 
and  tradition  ;  modern  studies  and  classical ;  interest  and  discipline  ;  super- 
vision from  above  and  a  large  measure  of  local  variety  and  self-government. 
She  finds  much  to  admire  both  in  German  education  and  in  American. 
In  the  former,  its  extraordinary  precision  of  aim,  its  high  intellectual 
standards,  its  wide  diffusion  and  convenience  of  access  ;  in  the  latter,  its 
verve,  its  belief  in  its  own  future,  its  intense  vitality,  its  incessant  experi- 
menting, its  courage  and  its  readiness  to  take  stock  of  itself  and  to  adjust 
itself  to  new  needs.  They,  on  the  other  hand,  find  much  to  admire  in  our 
best  educational  tradition — in  its  fairness  of  mind ;  in  its  personal  devo- 
tion to  the  welfare  of  the  boys  or  girls  committed  to  its  charge ;  in  its 
strong  ethical  tradition  ;  in  its  conviction  that,  unless  ballasted  by  a  strong 
moral  character,  intellectual  brilliancy  is  a  mischievous  thing ;  and,  not 
least,  in  its  belief  that  the  highest  kind  of  scholarship  is  that  which  trans- 
lates into  wise  action  and  unselfishly  embodies  itself  in  the  corporate  life 
of  some  great  institution  "  (M.  E.  Sadler,  American  Ideals  in  Education, 
Special  Reports,  vol.  ii.,  pt.  2,  p.  462). 


CHAPTER   I. 

AMERICAN  HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

Exiger  de  1'enseignement  secondaire  qu'il  maintienne  dans  1'ordre 
sp£culatif,  1'excellence  du  g£nie  national. — COUBYA. 

IF  the  Americans  use  the  same  word  as  a  technical  term  in 
education  they  often  mean  something  quite  different  from 
our  use;  so  the  phrase  "high  school"  must  be  defined  for 
English  people.  It  describes  the  public  secondary  school, 
whether  for  boys  or  girls,  or  more  generally  for  both,  pro- 
vided by  the  local  authority,  supported  entirely  from  public 
local  taxation,  and  free  ;  books  often  being  found  as  well  as 
instruction.  In  other  words,  what  a  county  or  municipal 
secondary  school  is  in  England,  so  far  as  its  free  scholars 
are  concerned,  the  public  high  school  in  America  is  for 
all.  It  is  in  organic  relation  with  the  grammar  school, 
and  pupils  come  on  straight  from  the  one  to  the  other, 
generally  at  fourteen  years  of  age,  an  entrance  examination 
as  a  rule  being  only  required  from  those  who  do  not  enter 
from  a  public  elementary  school,  but  who  are,  of  course, 
required  to  reach  the  same  standard  as  the  majority  of  the 
pupils  coming  direct.  The  four  years'  course  to  eighteen 
years  of  age  is  unfortunately  not  completed  by  the  majority. 
In  some  cases  only  10  per  cent,  "graduate"  as  it  is 
called. 

Originally  the  public  high  school  was  not  intended  to 
fit  pupils  for  college.  It  was  to  be  a  conclusion  of  general 
education,  and  to  give  some  preparation  for  practical  life, 
but  of  late  years,  especially,  an  increasingly  large  proportion 

46 


American  High  Schools  47 

of  boys  and  girls  go  on  to  college,  under  systems  which 
will  be  explained  in  the  next  chapter. 

Historically  the  high  school  stands  for  the  third  stage 
in  the  evolution  of  American  secondary  education.  In 
the  colonial  period  necessarily  the  emigrants  followed  the 
ways  of  home,  and  established  institutions  resembling  the 
old  English  grammar  schools,  which  were  distinctly  in- 
tended to  prepare  for  college  boys  of  the  professional  and 
governing  classes.  The  oldest  of  these  still  survives — the 
Boston  Latin  School,  which  was  established  in  1635  by  the 
town  meeting,  five  years  after  the  settlement  of  Boston. 
Some  of  the  islands  in  Boston  Harbour  were  set  apart  for 
the  maintenance  of  this  free  school.  It  prepared  boys  for 
admission  to  Harvard  College.  The  curriculum  of  these 
colonial  grammar  schools  was  very  narrow,  classics  being 
the  staple,  but  there  was  some  teaching  of  arithmetic  and 
writing  either  in  the  annexe  or  by  the  grammar  master 
himself.1  The  second  stage  is  marked  by  the  evolution  of 
a  new  type  :  the  American  Academy,  which  constitutionally 
is  like  the  English  "  Public  School "  an  independent  in- 
stitution. An  academy  was  generally  a  secondary  school, 
incorporated  by  the  State,  but  managed  by  a  self-perpetu- 
ating board  of  trustees.  Sometimes  it  was  under  the 
immediate  patronage  of  a  religious  sect,  but  more  com- 
monly it  was  non-sectarian.  It  was  a  school  sometimes 
for  boys,  sometimes  for  girls,  and  sometimes  co-educational. 
Often,  but  not  always,  it  was  a  boarding-school.  Many  of 
these  were  established  just  after  the  Revolution  and  in  the 
early  nineteenth  century,  and  they  continued  to  prosper, 
the  older  grammar  schools  being  generally  transformed 
into  institutions  of  the  newer  type.  The  academies 

1  These  statements  are  drawn  from  The  Making  of  our  Middle  Schools 
by  Elmer  Ellsworth  Brown,  now  United  States  Commissioner  for  Educa-  I 
tion;  a  most  valuable  book,  which  should  be  read  by  all  who  wish  to 
understand  American  secondary  education.     (Longmans,  Green,  &  Co., 
1905.) 


48     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

sometimes  received  donations  of  land  or  money  from  the 
State  Governments.  They  prepared  for  college,  and 
taught  also  modern  subjects — mathematics,  English 
history,  science  and  even  book-keeping.  Dr.  Brown  says 
of  them  :  "  The  academies  cultivated  a  vigorous  nationalism 
through  instruction  in  American  history,  and  raised  up  an 
intelligent  constituency  for  the  makers  of  our  earlier 
literature.  They  gave  instruction  to  many  who  afterwards 
became  teachers  in  the  elementary  schools,  and  so  prepared 
the  way  for  the  '  Educational  Revival '  in  the  second 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  They  were  forerunners 
of  the  normal  schools.  They  offered  a  field  for  early  ex- 
periment in  co-education  and  in  an  advanced  grade  of 
separate  education  for  women.  In  them  was  developed  an 
early  form  of  non-sectarian  instruction,  and  in  this,  as  well 
as  in  various  other  ways,  they  bridged  the  passage  to  the 
modern  secular  public  high  school."  Just  as  in  England 
at  present  and  for  some  years  past  there  has  been  a  struggle 
between  the  two  types  of  secondary  school,  the  older 
endowed  or  proprietary  institution,  and  the  new  higher 
grade  or  municipal  secondary  schools  belonging  to  the 
local  authority — a  struggle  which  is  likely  to  go  on  for 
some  time  yet — so  in  America  in  the  third  stage  the  public 
high  school  grew  up,  because  the  academies,  often  charging 
what  were  thought  to  be  high  fees,  could  not  cover  the 
whole  ground.  The  movement  began  in  Boston  as  a 
reaction  against  the  exclusively  classical  type  of  the 
education  given  in  the  ancient  Latin  School.  In  1821  the 
English  Classical  School,  now  the  English  High  School, 
in  Boston,  was  established  by  the  public  authority  to  pro- 
vide a  finishing  course  of  studies  for  boys  intended  for  com- 
mercial or  industrial  life.  The  name,  it  is  thought,  was 
borrowed  originally  from  the  Edinburgh  High  School,  so 
familiar  to  students  of  literature  from  the  life  of  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  Other  Massachusetts  towns  followed  Boston's 


American  High  Schools  49 

example.  Philadelphia  established  her  great  High  School 
in  1 838.  The  movement  spread  over  the  country  generally. 
"  The  academies  had  begun  to  feel  keenly  the  competition 
of  the  new  institutions  before  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War, 
and  in  the  forty  years  that  have  elapsed  since  that  struggle 
the  high  schools  have  come  more  and  more  to  be  the 
dominant  feature  of  our  secondary  education." 

As  co-education  was  already  familiar  in  the  common 
school,  and  in  many  of  the  academies,  it  naturally  was 
adopted  in  the  new  public  high  school,  especially  in 
smaller  places.  In  Boston  a  separate  Girls'  High  School 
was  opened  in  1826,  then  closed  and  reopened  in  1852 
as  a  training  school  for  teachers.  It  is  the  Girls'  High 
School  of  to-day;  a  large  proportion  of  its  i,OOO  pupils 
intend  to  become  teachers.  The  Girls'  Latin  School  of 
Boston  was  not  opened  till  1875,  anc^  represents  a  further 
stage  in  development,  when  girls  were  going  regularly  to 
college. 

As  with  us,  the  problem  of  the  curriculum  in  the  second- 
ary school  has  been  one  of  long-standing  difficulty.  We 
have  seen  historically  that  separate  schools  for  the  classical 
and  modern  sides  were  established  in  Boston.  During 
the  last  forty  or  fifty  years  the  new  subjects — science, 
manual  training,  commercial  instruction,  not  to  say 
English  and  history — have  all  pressed  in  and  crowded  the 
curriculum.  America  has  gone  through  the  conflict  of 
studies,  and  the  questions  are  on  the  whole  fairly  well 
settled  ;  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Ten,  1903,  mark- 
ing a  distinct  stage  in  the  solution.  Different  courses  of 
study  are  laid  down  by  the  authorities,  and  the  parents 
and  pupils  select  There  is,  however,  a  question  still  un- 
settled, and  that  is  whether  there  should  be  separate 
schools  for  the  separate  courses,  as  in  Germany  with  its 
Gymnasia,  Real-schulen,  etc.,  or  whether  as  in  England 
there  should  be  different  sides  in  the  same  school.  Much 

4 


50     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

depends  of  course  on  the  size  of  the  city.  The  tendency 
seems  to  be  in  America  towards  separate  schools  wherever 
the  population  is  large  enough.  The  chief  reason  given 
for  this  applies  especially  to  the  new  Manual  Training 
High  Schools ;  these  have  arisen  through  the  enthusiasm 
and  vigour  of  individuals  who  believed  in  manual  training, 
and  it  is  said  that  the  plan  would  not  have  had  a  fair 
chance  unless  it  had  been  tried  in  a  separate  school,  with 
a  principal  who  firmly  believed  in  the  new  doctrine.  There 
are  still  traces  of  conflict  between  the  ideal  of  the  general 
academic  course  of  instruction  and  of  the  new,  more  prac- 
tical courses.  This  matter,  as  regards  girls,  will  be  more 
fully  treated  in  Chapter  VII.  Undoubtedly  in  a  school 
which  has  either  separate  courses  of  study  or  a  certain 
amount  of  choice  between  different  subjects,  "  electives " 
as  Americans  call  them,  there  is  a  tendency  for  girls  to 
choose  a  rather  different  curriculum  from  boys ;  they  take 
more  culture  studies,  and  less  mathematics  and  science. 

The  organisation  of  particular  cities  may  perhaps  be 
quoted.  Boston  has  fourteen  public  secondary  schools : 
the  two  Latin  Schools,  one  for  boys  and  one  for  girls, 
already  mentioned;  the  English  High  School  founded 
in  1821,  for  boys  only,  and  two  others — the  Mechanic  Arts 
High  School,  and  the  new  Commercial  High  School,  also 
reserved  for  boys.  The  girls  have  their  own  English 
High  School,  called  simply  the  Girls'  High  School,  which 
includes  a  large  commercial  department,  and  their  own 
Manual  Arts  High  School  for  cookery  and  other  domestic 
arts  and  sciences — a  quite  new  institution  only  just  organ- 
ised. There  are  further  seven  co-educational  High  Schools 
in  suburban  areas.  There  is  also  a  Normal  School,  with  a 
two  years'  course  from  eighteen  to  twenty  years  for  young 
women  who  become  teachers  in  the  common  schools.  The 
full  total  of  pupils  on  3<Dth  June,  1906,  the  latest  report 
available,  is  7,305  ;  the  average  number  of  pupils  to  a 


American  High  Schools  51 

teacher  being  34*6,  and  the  average  cost  per  pupil  being 
nearly  $100  =  £20. 

The  New  York  system  is  comparatively  modern  and 
may  be  said  to  represent  the  last  word  for  an  organisation 
in  a  great  city.1  The  official  list  (General  Circular  No.  1 3) 
contains  the  names  of  nineteen  schools :  five  for  boys  only, 
three  for  girls  only,  and  eleven,  mainly  in  the  suburbs, 
co-educational.  All,  except  three,  present  the  general  course 
with  some  electives  in  commercial  and  manual  training 
subjects.  Manhattan  Island  and  Brooklyn  each  have  a 
Commercial  High  School  for  Boys,  and  the  Stuyvesant 
for  boys  only  specialises  in  manual  training.  Some  of  the 
other  schools  also  have  manual  training  courses  and 
technical  domestic  courses  for  girls,  especially  the  great 
Brooklyn  Manual  Training  High  School  with  its  3,000 
pupils. 

In  Philadelphia  there  is  a  very  large  and  successful  High 
School  for  Girls  (see  Appendix),  a  Commercial  High  School 
for  Girls,  as  well  as  a  famous  Central  High  School  for  Boys 
and  three  Manual  Training  High  Schools  for  Boys. 

Washington,  which  is  especially  interesting,  because  the 
High  Schools  are  attended  there  by  a  class  of  pupils  who 
in  New  York  or  Philadelphia  would  go  to  private  schools, 
has  a  very  complete  system  :  four  General,  one  being  for 
coloured  pupils :  one  Business  High  School :  one  Manual 
High  Training  School  for  white  pupils,  and  another  for 
coloured.  Washington  is  so  far  South  as  to  have  a  very 
large  coloured  population.  All  the  schools  are  co-educa- 
tional. One,  the  Western,  is  remarkable  as  having  a 
woman  head. 

In  St.  Louis,  a  great  centre  of  population  in  the  Missis- 
sippi Valley,  whose  public  school  system  has  long  been 

1  The  writer  much  regrets  that  owing  to  illness  in  New  York  she  was 
unable  to  study  as  fully  as  it  deserves  this  elaborate  and  exhaustive 
scheme. 

4* 


52     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

managed  by  enlightened  officials,  the  system  of  separate 
courses  of  study  is  preferred  rather  than  separate  schools. 
"  The  district  high  school  should  be  complete  in  itself  and 
should  contain  all  the  units  of  secondary  education  for  the 
entire  course."  This  phrase  occurs  in  a  paper, "  The  Scope 
and  Content  of  the  District  High  School,"  by  Gilbert  B. 
Morrison,  Principal  of  the  McKinley  High  School,  St. 
Louis,  Mo.,  a  typically  fine  institution  where  one  can  study 
the  Western  High  School  at  its  best.  Its  nine  courses  of 
study  are :  a  general  and  a  scientific,  giving  a  choice  between 
Latin  and  Modern  Languages ;  a  classical  and  a  college 
classical,  requiring  Latin,  Greek  and  a  Modern  Language ; 
a  college  scientific,  requiring  Latin  and  a  Modern  Lan- 
guage ;  a  commercial ;  a  manual  training ;  a  Preparatory 
(for  intending  teachers) ;  and  an  Art  Course. 

The  strongest  argument  for  having  all  these  courses  in 
one  school  would  not  perhaps  have  occurred  to  English 
people ;  'the  plan  is  democratic  ;  caste  and  class  distinctions 
are  involved  in  having  separate  schools,  and  the  American 
view  is  that  all  classes  should  meet  together  in  the  public 
school.  This  separation  of  the  pupils  whose  parents  from 
long  inheritance  and  custom  would  choose  for  their  children 
the  humanities,  from  the  pupils  whose  parents  from  lack  of 
education  and  opportunities  would  choose  the  so-called 
"  vocational  studies,"  is  a  step  towards  a  reversion  to  the  old 
class  idea.  Undoubtedly  the  study  of  Latin  means  a  certain 
social  discrimination.  It  is  understood  in  Boston  that  on 
the  whole  the  pupils  who  attend  the  Latin  Schools  come 
from  better  homes  and  more  cultivated  families  than  those 
attending  the  English  High  Schools,  though  both  sets  are 
quite  free.  Vocational  studies  which  will  help  a  pupil  to 
earn  a  living  immediately  on  leaving  school  naturally  appeal 
more  to  the  poorer  homes.  On  the  other  hand,  classical 
studies  are  a  preparation  for  college,  which,  as  we  shall  see 
in  Chapter  III.,  is  a  social  discrimination  in  the  United 


American  High  Schools  53 

States.  Manual  training  especially  has  had  to  struggle 
against  the  idea  that  socially  it  would  not  be  quite  so  good. 
We  may  quote  again  from  Mr.  Morrison  of  St.  Louis  : — 

This  tendency  toward  the  elimination  of  the  class  feeling, 
which  the  intermingling  of  all  pupils  in  subjects  which  they 
have  in  common  is  accomplishing,  is  the  most  important  work 
when  broadly  considered  that  the  schools  are  doing  to-day. 
Boys  and  girls  from  all  courses,  classical,  commercial,  literary, 
scientific  and  manual  training,  reciting  together  in  the  same 
classes  in  English,  language,  history  or  mathematics,  become 
known  to  one  another,  and  this  association  is  breaking  down 
those  social  barriers  and  artificial  distinctions  which  have  caused 
so  much  sorrow  and  injustice  in  the  world. 

He  thinks  that  the  literary  boy  and  the  manual  training 
boy  each  do  the  other  a  great  deal  of  good ;  it  is  certainly 
the  experience  of  some  English  heads  of  schools  that  the 
poor  scholar  from  the  public  elementary  school  and  the  well- 
to-do  daughter  of  a  cultivated  home  may  each  bring  a 
valuable  element  to  the  life  of  their  form  and  their  school. 
In  this  connection  there  might  be  mentioned  what  undoubt- 
edly induces  many  parents  of  the  poorest  class  in  America 
to  make  heroic  efforts  and  sacrifices  to  let  their  children, 
especially  their  girls,  go  through  a  high  school  course ;  it 
does  give  a  certain  social  advantage.  We  were  told  of  girls 
whose  parents  were  teamsters,  and  washerwomen,  and 
porters  in  warehouses,  and  office  cleaners.  Such  people 
might  expect  that  at  fourteen  their  girls  would  be  beginning 
to  earn,  and  yet  somehow  these  parents  managed  to  support 
their  children,  and  let  the  girls  come  to  the  high  school  with 
the  same  neat  attire,  good  shoes,  and  fresh  white  blouses, 
as  other  girls.  In  certain  large  works  and  many  business 
houses  no  boy  is  taken  unless  he  has  graduated  at  a  high 
school,  that  is,  is  nearly  eighteen  years  of  age.  All  thi  s 
higher  education,  penetrating  to  classes  which  in  England 


54     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

are  only  just  beginning  to  believe  in  education  at  all,  must 
make  a  great  difference  to  the  industrial  efficiency  and 
standard  of  civilisation  in  America.1  Indeed  when  one 
watched  these  thousands  of  young  people  in  one  city  after 
another,  receiving  such  a  good  average  of  general  education, 
when  at  home  there  are  so  many  in  every  class  who  are 
badly  educated,  one  felt  it  was  indeed  time  for  England 
"  to  wake  up  "  as  the  Prince  of  Wales  said  in  his  memorable 
\Guildhall  speech  in  1903. 

The  internal  organisation  of  an  American  high  school 
is  not  a  very  difficult  matter.  As  we  have  seen,  there  is 
none  of  that  elaborate  subdivision  and  classification  which 
makes  the  organisation  of  an  English  secondary  school 
so  complicated,  nor  is  there  the  inequality  of  the  pupils 
coming  in  with  which  we  are  so  familiar.  In  America  they 
have  all  gone  through  the  grammar  school  at  fourteen 
or  fifteen,  or  have  passed  an  equivalent  examination,  and 
they  enter  at  the  one  time  in  September,  though  there 
must  of  course  be  occasional  changes  due  to  removal  of 
families,  sickness,  etc.  Still  there  such  cases  have  to  take 
care  of  themselves.  The  unit  of  organisation  is  the  Year ; 
in  the  time-table  one  notices  I.,  II.,  III.,  IV.,  meaning  the 
different  years  of  the  course,  though  each  in  a  large  high 
school  will  have  to  be  divided  into  sections.  If  we  suppose, 
say,  200  enter  they  may  be  worked  in  five  sections.  In  the 
next  year  the  number  may  be  1 50  and  the  sections  will 
be  smaller.  In  the  third  year  the  number  may  come  down 

1 "  America  is  in  the  hands  of  young  men.  Nowhere  else  is  there  such 
a  resolute  and  vigorous  body  of  young  men,  determined  at  all  costs  to 
make  their  country  the  chief  commercial  and  industrial  nation  in  the 
world.  Education  has  helped  them  to  be  practical,  but  it  is  they  who 
have  insisted  on  having  a  practical  education.  The  character  of  a  nation 
makes  its  schools.  A  vigorous  people  uses  its  schools  as  a  sharp  instru- 
ment ;  a  sleepy  or  stupid  nation  allows  its  schools  to  jog  along  in  the  old 
routine  "  (M.  E.  Sadler,  American  Ideals  in  Education,  Special  Reports, 
vol.  ii.,  pt.  2). 


American  High  Schools  55 

to  loo  and  the  number  of  sections  will  be  less.  Fifty 
(two  sections)  may  remain  throughout  the  fourth  year  and 
graduate.  This  will  be  10  per  cent,  of  the  500  in  the 
school,  and  is  perhaps  an  extreme  case.  Where  a  good 
many  are  prepared  for  college  as  in  the  Brookline  High 
School,  Mass.,  or  where  a  good  many  girls  are  going  on 
to  the  normal  college,  a  much  greater  number  will  natur- 
ally remain  to  finish  the  course.  Professor  Thorndike  of 
Teachers'  College,  Columbia,  says  that  100  girls  enter  the 
City  High  School  for  every  75  boys,  but  that  the  boys  are 
eliminated  more  rapidly,  and  there  are  60  per  cent,  more 
girls  in  the  last  year.  It  is  very  strange  not  to  have  any 
Form  system,  and  to  find  in  some  cases  that  a  girl  has  no 
place  she  can  call  her  own  except  the  lock-up  cupboard  in 
the  passage  where  she  keeps  her  books.  In  some  of  the 
very  large  high  schools  a  girl  may  go  each  day  to  a 
different  dressing-room,  the  one  adjoining  the  recitation- 
room  where  the  last  lesson  of  the  day  is  given.  When  there 
are  3,000  in  a  school  such  a  plan  is  obviously  very  sensible. 
As  in  college  the  Year  keeps  together  for  social  life  and 
self-government  if  there  is  any.  It  is  called  a  Class,  and 
that  which  entered  last  September  will  leave  in  1911,  and 
is  therefore  called  the  Class  of  191 1.  One  Class,  e.g.,  may 
give  a  dramatic  entertainment  and  invite  their  parents  or 
teachers  or  another  Class. 

The  buildings  are  always  fine,  sometimes  magnificent. 
The  type  is  neither  the  central  hall  nor  the  corridor ;  the 
latter,  indeed,  in  so  extreme  a  climate  would  be  unsuitable. 
A  solid  block  of  buildings,  square  or  with  a  square  block 
in  the  middle  and  two  larger  wings  also  nearly  square,  is 
a  type  much  better  suited  for  extreme  heat  or  extreme 
cold.  Externally  one  notices  rows  of  windows  in  each 
elevation,  a  handsome  entrance,  and  some  architectural 
ornament  marking  the  different  floors.  The  Stars  and 
Stripes  flying  from  the  roof  during  the  school  session  is 


56     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

guide  enough  to  the  visitor,  even  if  school  buildings  were 
not  conspicuous  by  their  size,  height  and  character.  Play- 
grounds are  not  important — there  may  be  some  open 
space  or  there  may  not  If  the  latter,  pupils  may,  in 
quieter  neighbourhoods,  walk  up  and  down  in  the  street  at 
the  luncheon  hour.  Internally  the  staircases  and  vestibules 
are  always  large  and  well  planned,  as  they  need  be  for 
the  numbers.  Lifts  are  now  usual,  and  the  rule  seems  to 
be  that  the  girls  are  allowed  to  use  the  lifts  and  the  boys 
have  to  keep  to  the  stairs.  The  decoration  is  simple  but 
often  very  effective — burlap,  a  rough  canvas,  painted,  is 
much  used.  In  the  new  building  of  the  Girls'  Latin 
High  School  in  Boston  there  is  much  oak  panelling  with 
cream  burlap  above.  There  all  the  cupboards,  desks,  etc., 
are  of  this  fine  dark  oak,  and  the  classrooms  are  cream 
coloured  above  the  wooden  panelling  or  wall  blackboards. 
Pictures  abound  and  often  statuary  as  well.  The  assembly 
hall  generally  stands  in  a  corner,  perhaps  at  the  top  of  the 
building,  or  it  may  occupy  one  side  of  the  middle  block. 
As  a  rule  it  will  not  hold  more  than  1,000,  sometimes  less, 
so  that  in  the  very  large  schools  all  the  scholars  never 
meet  at  once.  These  halls  do  not  seem  very  beautiful  to 
any  one  who  knows  some  of  the  fine  English  examples,  as 
at  the  Ladies'  College,  Cheltenham,  or  the  Frances  Mary 
Buss  School  in  London,  to  say  nothing  of  the  halls  and 
chapels  of  the  great  boys'  public  schools.  They  are  very 
much  like  a  public  concert  hall,  having  large  galleries  and 
a  big  platform.  The  laboratories,  a  comparatively  new 
feature  in  American  education,  do  not  seem  on  the  whole 
as  good  as  ours,  but  the  gymnasia  are  very  much  better 
and  almost  always  include  shower-baths. 

The  equipment  for  technical  teaching  we  shall  describe 
in  Chapters  VI.  and  VII.  The  heating  and  ventilation 
in  all  the  modern  buildings  are  exceedingly  good.  In 
that  climate  the  mechanical  systems,  which  do  not  work 


American  High  Schools  57 

in  England,  work  very  well,  and  if  one  dresses  accordingly 
the  warmth  in  winter  is  very  welcome,  even  if  it  be  over 
70°.  In  visiting  a  number  of  good  high  schools  in  the 
larger  cities  stuffiness  and  the  peculiarly  unpleasant  ex- 
perience of  a  badly  ventilated  classroom  were  never  noticed. 
If  one  inspects  the  beautiful  machinery  in  the  basements 
of  these  splendid  buildings,  with  its  own  staff  of  men  to 
run  it,  one  cannot  be  surprised  at  the  excellent  results. 

The  new  modern  district  high  school  contains  besides  the 
usual  number  of  classrooms  and  a  large  auditorium,  art  drawing- 
rooms,  drafting-rooms,  five  large  shops  for  the  mechanic  arts, 
domestic  science  laboratory,  domestic  art-rooms  ;  rooms  for 
commercial  branches — stenography,  typewriting  and  book- 
keeping, with  a  counting-room  for  office  routine ;  laboratories 
for  studying  physics,  chemistry,  physiography  and  biology ;  a 
library ;  a  lunch  department  including  a  large  dining-room, 
kitchen,  check  office  and  refrigerator-room ;  and  two  gym- 
nasiums, one  for  boys  and  one  for  girls  (Morrison,  The  District 
High  School}. 

As  has  been  stated  above,  the  problem  of  the  curriculum, 
which  we  in  England  are  now  struggling  with,  is  all  but 
settled  in  regard  to  liberal  studies  for  the  high  schools  of 
the  United  States,  after  a  long  period  of  conflict  and  dis- 
cussion. English  has  become  the  compulsory  subject,  with, 
as  a  rule,  a  certain  amount  of  mathematics.  The  tendency 
is  for  English  to  be  taken  throughout  the  course,  a  lesson 
a  day;  this  lesson  is  mainly  given  to  literature,  a  large 
number  of  books  being  read  somewhat  as  in  the  four  years' 
course  suggested  by  the  Board  of  Education.  Speeches  by 
Burke  and  great  American  orators  are  generally  read  in 
the  last  year.  Algebra  is  a  year's  work  with  a  lesson  every 
day,  geometry  the  same,  revision  of  the  subject  generally 
takes  place  later,  and  there  may  be  a  fourth  year  of 
trigonometry,  solid  geometry,  etc.  The  details  for  history 


58     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

are  given  in  Chapter  V.  Latin  is  often  found  in  the  first 
year  of  the  course,  again  with  a  lesson  every  day.  One  of 
the  greatest  merits  of  the  American  curriculum  is  that 
very  few  subjects  are  studied  at  one  time ;  a  pupil  generally 
carries,  as  the  phrase  goes,  four  or  five,  not  counting  draw- 
ing or  gymnastics.  The  following  plan  illustrates  the  first 
year's  work,  the  number  meaning  lesson  periods  a  week : — 

English  5. 
Algebra  5. 
Latin  5. 
History  4. 
Biology  4. 

Since  many  pupils  leave  the  high  school  after  the  first 
year  the  statistics  of  the  studies  show  a  preponderance  of 
first-year  subjects,  algebra,  e.g.,  having  a  larger  number  of 
entries  than  any  other  subject,  the  next  being  Latin.  Any 
statement  as  to  the  popularity  of  Latin  in  the  American 
high  school  should  be  read  with  this  warning.  Modern 
languages  are  nothing  like  as  important  as  with  us  ;  German 
is,  however,  often  studied  and  might  be  begun  in  the  third 
year,  two  years,  at  five  lessons  a  week  being  enough  to  give 
a  fair  reading  knowledge ;  conversation  is  as  a  rule  not 
aimed  at.  French  is  a  much  less  popular  subject. 

In  the  later  years  considerable  freedom  of  election  is 
generally  offered ;  all  the  necessary  mathematics  may  have 
been  finished,  and  if  the  college  entrance  examination  has 
to  be  passed  the  mathematical  part  can  be  done  at  the 
end  of  the  third  year.  The  last  year  of  study  for  a  typical 
pupil  going  to  college  would  be — 

English  5. 

Physics  5. 

Latin  5. 

German  or  Greek  4  or  5. 

History  3  or  4. 


American  High  Schools  59 

It  might  even  be  that  the  pupil  had  passed  the  history 
requirements  also  at  the  end  of  the  third  year.     The  way 
the  pupils  work  by  themselves  would,  we  think,  only  be 
possible  when  they  are  learning  a  few  subjects  at  a  time. 
One  is  tempted,  of  course,  to  compare  the  work  of  the 
American  high  school  with  that  of  the  English  secondary 
school ;  in  history,  as  is   fully  shown  in  Chapter  V.,  the 
American  school  is  very  much  better.     In  French,  on  the 
other  hand,  their  work  must  we  think  be  held  inferior  to 
that  at  all  events  of  the  girls'  school ;  German,  on  the 
other  hand,  seemed  to  be  well  taught.     One  may  hear 
excellent  lessons  in  German  composition,  the  blackboard 
being  largely  used  for  writing  by  the  pupils,  and  something 
like  the  direct  method  being  employed.     The  writer  is  not 
competent  to  give  an  opinion  in  Latin  and  Greek ;  her 
impression  was,  however,  that  the  classical  work  is  not  as 
good  as  with  us.     In  mathematics  it  is  extremely  difficult 
to  make  any  comparison,  especially  in  geometry,  where  the 
methods  are  different.    We   do  not   think  that   English 
girls  would  have  been  able  to  follow  and  understand  their 
geometry  from  the  recitations  which  were  clearly  followed 
and  understood  by  American  girls.     Algebra  seemed  to  be 
about  the  same  as  with  us ;  they  use  the  wall  blackboard, 
fifteen  pupils  working  at  once  while  the  other  fifteen  pupils 
remain  in  their  seats  and  criticise.     Thus  there  is  no  writ- 
ing home-work  to  be  taken  in  and  collected  by  the  teacher. 
Indeed,  we  may  say  that   there  seems  to  be  very  little 
written  home-work  or  correction  of  written  home-work  by 
the  teachers.     Those  who  set  essays  and  give  frequent 
short  written  examinations  to  their  classes  obviously  feel 
they  are  doing  something  out  of  the  common,  and  have 
as  some  compensation  for  the  extra  toil  of  correction  the 
consciousness  of  doing  more  than  is  normally  required  in 
the  profession  ;  a  very  different  attitude  from  that  of  the 
English  high  school  mistress  who  apologises  if  she  does 


60     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

not  give  written  home-work.  She  would  say,  however, 
that  with  five  lessons  a  week  in  a  subject  instead  of  two 
she  need  never  give  any. 

Laboratories  for  science  teaching  are  of  course  general, 
though  in  excellence  of  equipment  the  schools  vary  a 
good  deal,  the  quite  modern  buildings  being  of  course 
the  best.  Many  schools  have  something  of  the  nature 
of  a  biological  laboratory.  A  year  of  practical  physics 
is  generally  required  for  entrance  to  college,  and  certified 
notebooks  have  to  be  sent  up.  Girls  seem  to  enjoy  their 
physics  lessons  to  a  greater  degree  than  is  usual  in  Eng- 
land ;  a  good  deal  of  the  teaching  was  done  by  men. 
It  should  be  stated  that  geography  is  not  a  high  school 
subject  at  all  in  America.  Work  of  the  kind  Messrs. 
Mackinder  and  Herbertson  advocate,  and  which  is  done 
for  the  matriculation  examinations  of  the  Northern  uni- 
versities, is  unknown  there,  though  a  recent  article  in  the 
Educational  Review  brings  in  a  powerful  plea  for  the  sub- 
ject, which,  now  America  is  becoming  a  world  power,  will 
be  more  important  to  them,  just  as  it  is  to  us.  Manual 
training  for  girls  can  best  be  treated  in  the  chapter  on  Home 
Economics. 

Let  us  try  to  imagine  a  typical  day  in  an  American 
high  school  and  contrast  it  with  what  is  so  familiar  to 
some  of  us  in  England.  There  is  no  assembly  of  the  whole 
school,  first  thing  in  the  morning  every  day,  for  prayers. 
The  school  law  of  many  places  does  not  allow  of  any 
religious  observance,  and  as  we  have  seen  it  would  not 
always  be  possible  to  get  the  whole  school  into  the  hall 
or  auditorium ;  but  the  principle  of  an  assembly  at  least 
once  a  week  for  different  parts  of  the  school  is,  so  far  as 
we  know,  universal ;  some  have  it  twice  a  week.  In  the 
McKinley  High  School,  at  St.  Louis,  numbering  1,500, 
they  assemble  first  thing  on  Friday  morning  for  one  hour, 
and  music  is  performed  by  visitors  and  pupils ;  speakers 


American  High  Schools  61 

from  the  city  or  the  university  or  visitors  may  deliver  ad- 
dresses, or  lantern  lectures  may  be  given.  In  Philadelphia 
and  New  York  the  old  custom  of  the  reading  of  a  passage 
from  the  Bible  by  the  headmaster  continues.  A  hymn 
of  a  simple  character,  such  as  one  of  Whittier's,  is  sung 
by  the  pupils,  and  at  Philadelphia  the  Lord's  Prayer  is  re- 
peated. This  represents,  we  think,  the  maximum  of  re- 
ligious observance  allowed  anywhere  in  the  public  high 
school.  The  writer  had  the  privilege  of  addressing  several 
assemblies.  The  order  and  attention  were  perfect,  and 
the  marching  out  to  music  at  the  close  is  as  fine  as  any- 
thing she  had  ever  seen  in  England.  The  way  in  which 
the  thousands  of  girls  in  the  Philadelphia  High  School  and 
the  Wadleigh  High  School,  in  New  York,  marched  out  in 
under  two  minutes  was  wonderful.  It  was  a  triumph  of 
discipline  and  organisation.  The  wide  passages  and  skil- 
ful arrangement  of  seats  make  possible  what  would  need 
much  more  care  and  time  in  the  average  English  school 
hall. 

The  hours  are  from  8.30  to  1.30,  or  9  to  2,  or  9  to  2.30 ; 
roughly,  a  five  hours'  session  with  six  or  seven  periods 
of  forty,  forty-five  or  fifty  minutes  each  and  a  recess  or 
break  of  twenty  minutes  to  half  an  hour,  rarely  longer,  for 
food  and  rest.  One  sees  pupils  hurrying  the  first  thing  in 
the  morning  in  the  familiar  way,  but  they  do  not  wear  a 
school  cap  or  a  school-hat  ribbon.  This  is  quite  contrary 
to  American  sentiment  and  would  be  resented.  The  girls 
do  not  change  their  shoes,  but  they  wear  rubbers  in  bad 
weather,  which  are  slipped  off  quickly  with  the  other  out- 
door garments,  and  the  girls  proceed  at  once  to  the  room 
where  they  have  the  first  recitation  of  the  day.  Here  one 
comes  at  once  upon  a  difference ;  the  teacher  keeps  the 
room  and  the  pupils  move  about.  This  has  the  advantage 
that  the  room  is  arranged  for  mathematics,  for  history,  for 
classics,  but  it  is  of  course  impossible  to  combine  this  with 


62     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

the  Form  system.  After  three-quarters  of  an  hour  electric 
bells  ring  and  the  recitation  or  lesson  ends.  The  pupils 
gather  up  their  books  and  go  on  somewhere  else,  just  as 
they  please.  We  did  not  see  any  general  marching  about ; 
everything  is  done  quite  freely,  but  quickly,  neatly  and 
in  perfect  order,  and  though  conversation  is  allowed  at  the 
change  of  lessons,  without  any  loitering  and  noise ;  and 
this  we  must  remember  with  1,500  to  2,000  young  people 
from  fourteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age  and  no  teachers  or 
prefects  on  duty  up  and  down  the  stairs  and  on  the  corri- 
dors. One  could  only  wonder  how  it  is  done,  and  wish  all 
our  young  people  were  as  quiet  and  orderly.1  There  will 
generally  be  four  lesson  periods  before  recess.  One  may 
be  spent  in  the  gymnasium  and  one  may  be  a  study  period, 
when  a  pupil  is  free  to  go  to  the  library  or  to  a  large  study 
hall  and  work  alone.  A  teacher  was  always  to  be  found 
seated  on  duty  in  these  rooms,  which  would  contain  from 
40  to  loo  or  more  students — boys  and  girls.  If  a  pupil 
has  his  or  her  own  desk  it  will  be  in  a  study  hall.  The 
recitation-rooms  often  have  chairs  with  a  flap  to  rest  a  note- 
book, if  they  are  used  for  literary  subjects.  Silence  is,  of 
course,  observed  in  periods  of  private  study.  There  seem 
to  be  in  some  cases  the  beginnings  of  a  Form  system — when 
a  master  or  a  mistress  is  specially  responsible  for  pupils 
belonging  to  one  study  hall. 

An  experienced  teacher  cannot,  of  course,  help  noticing 
boys  and  girls  and  formulating  opinions  about  them.  The 
\  American  schoolgirl  is  very  much  neater  and  carries  her- 
self much  better  than  the  average  English  one.  She 
wears,  in  winter,  a  short,  well-made  woollen  skirt  and  a 
white  shirt  waist  or  blouse,  often  daintily  trimmed  with 

lu  Order  is  not  an  external  form,  but  an  inner  habit — the  habit  of  going 
in  a  purposeful  way,  with  due  regard  to  the  purposes  and  rights  of  others, 
about  some  definite  thing,  even  though  the  lines  cross  and  recross  "  (N.  M. 
Butler,  Educational  Review,  October,  1899,  p.  291). 


American  High  Schools  63 

embroidery.  She  is,  of  course,  exquisitely  shod.  Short 
sleeves  were  in  fashion  in  the  winter  of  1907-8,  and  the  arms 
and  hands  were  obviously  very  well  cared  for.  A  good 
deal  of  jewellery  is  worn,  and  apparently  it  would  not  be 
possible  to  make  a  rule  against  it,  as  is  the  custom  in  some 
schools  in  England.  We  are  speaking,  it  is  understood,  of 
a  public  high  school,  attended  by  all  sections  of  the  com- 
munity, not  only  by  the  well-to-do.  A  private  school  might 
forbid  jewellery  as  do  some.  The  hair  is  always  beauti- 
fully dressed,  and  girls  seem  to  put  it  up  at  the  earliest 
possible  age ;  the  flowing  tresses  which  often  have  to  be 
tied  back  according  to  rule  in  England  do  not  appear  in 
general.  The  girls  in  the  first  year,  at  fourteen  or 
fifteen,  wear  large  ribbon-bows  and  plaits  somewhat  after 
the  French  style.  Obviously  the  ensemble  is  very  different 
from  that  one  sees  in  England,  where  there  is  a  very  much 
greater  variety  of  appearance,  unless  it  should  happen  that 
all  our  girls  are  wearing  gymnastic  costume  with  coloured 
ribbons. 

One  is  not  entitled  to  form  an  opinion  on  the  boys ; 
but  they  are  much  less  noisy  ;  one  understands,  too,  why 
some  Americans  buy  their  clothes  from  English  tailors. 
But  when  American  boys  are  in  uniform,  as  in  the  cadet 
corps  in  the  Washington  High  Schools,  they  look  ex- 
ceedingly well ;  the  dark  blue  and  gold,  with  the  brown 
leather  belts,  is  most  effective.  The  type  of  countenance 
is  quite  different ;  paler,  more  intellectual,  often  more 
resolute  than  our  youths. 

At  recess  the  whole  school  is  free.  The  time  is  too  short 
to  go  home,  but  very  often  pupils  are  allowed  to  go  outside 
and  get  food,  especially  of  course  ice-cream,  at  little  shops 
in  the  neighbourhood.  At  the  McKinley  High  School,  at 
St.  Louis,  only  a  few  are  allowed  out  by  special  leave.  The 
lunch  arrangements  are  excellent,  though  the  accommoda- 
tion is  often  very  limited  for  such  large  numbers ;  nothing 


64     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

but  perfect  organisation  would  make  it  work  at  all.  There 
is  no  school  dinner,  but  an  a  la  carte  menu  is  put  up  daily ; 
the  articles  are  5  cents,  10  cents,  the  meat  dishes  sometimes 
15  cents.  (Five  cents  is  the  price  one  pays  for  a  tram-fare, 
and  for  various  small  articles.  It  almost  corresponds  to  a 
penny  in  England.)  The  boys  and  girls,  mixing  freely 
together  at  recess,  pass  through  a  wicket,  and  take  up  what 
dishes  they  want,  with  the  spoons  and  forks  required,  as 
they  pass  along  the  counter ;  then  they  go  through  another 
wicket,  where  the  lady  in  charge  looks  at  the  tray  of  food 
and  sees  that  the  right  amount  of  money  is  put  down.  The 
pupil  then  finds  a  seat  where  he  or  she  pleases,  and  enjoys  the 
well-cooked,  daintily  served  lunch.  The  writer  again  and 
again  enjoyed  school  lunch  also ;  soup  with  biscuits  is  a 
cheap  and  popular  dish,  so  are  cheese  and  other  sandwiches 
and  salad  with  mayonaise;  there  are,  of  course,  sweet  things, 
cocoa  or  coffee,  milk  or  stewed  fruit,  etc.,  and  always  two 
meat  dishes,  chopped  beef  and  potatoes  or  rissoles  and  the 
like.  Ice-cream  is  charged  10  cents,  which  is  more  than  it 
costs.  The  other  dishes  are  at  cost  price  or  less.  The 
whole  thing  is  run  generally  by  one  of  the  trained  domestic 
science  teachers  or  specialists  now  turned  out  by  the  techni- 
cal colleges,  with,  of  course,  a  staff  under  her.  Ladies  of 
this  type  also  manage  the  institutional  housekeeping  as  in 
college  hostels,  and  they  do  it  infinitely  better  than  we. 
It  must  be  understood  that  Americans  eat  a  very  sub- 
stantial breakfast  of  cereals,  eggs,  etc.,  and  that  on  the 
whole  they  eat  less  meat  than  we  do.  These  boys  and 
girls  will  have  a  substantial  meal  later  on  in  the  day  when 
they  get  home,  but  they  do  not  have  afternoon  tea. 
Where,  as  often  in  England  a  hurried  and  meagre  break- 
fast is  taken,  and  a  midday  dinner  is  the  custom  for  young 
people,  the  American  lunch  plan  might  not  be  effective. 

After  lunch  work  goes  on  again,  two  more  recitations,  or 
possibly  three,  filling  up  the  time  till  1.30  P.M.  or  2  P.M. 


American  High  Schools  65 

or  later.  Then  the  girls  and  boys  go  home.  There  is  no 
"seeing  out"  by  teachers  in  any  formal  way.  In  a  very 
large  school  one  staircase  will  be  used  for  ascending  and 
one  for  descending.  Organised  games  in  the  afternoon  are 
rare ;  more  study  out  of  school  is  done  than  with  us,  and 
in  the  afternoon  one  sees  pupils  (students  they  are  called) 
of  the  high  schools  working  in  public  libraries.  Teachers 
complain  of  the  distractions  of  parties,  theatres,  bazaars,  and 
amusements  generally,  which  exhaust  the  strength  of  the 
girls  in  particular  and  take  the  energy  and  time  that  ought 
to  be  given  to  school  work.  The  boys  are  affected  also. 

The  good  discipline  of  American  schools  is  always 
noticed  by  English  observers  ;  the  most  remarkable  thing 
about  it  is  that  it  seems  to  come  of  itself.  It  is  not  main- 
tained by  artificial  sanctions.  Corporal  punishment,  the 
inalienable  right  of  the  English  public  school  boy,  is  all 
but  obsolete.  There  appear  to  be  no  small  penalties,  bad 
marks,  impositions  or  the  like.  Detention  is  rare,  and,  if 
it  does  happen,  seems  to  be  unsystematised.  As  far  as 
one  could  understand,  their  school  discipline  depends  on 
two  natural  sanctions,  the  spirit  of  the  nation1  and  the 

1 "  From  the  first  the  teacher  is  instructed  to  make  the  child  feel  that 
obedience  is  due  not  to  the  teacher's  arbitrary  power,  but  to  a  third  some- 
thing to  which  teacher  as  well  as  child  is  subject —  '  to  the  end '  as  our 
Massachusetts  Bill  of  Rights  has  it,  '  that  this  may  be  a  government  of 
laws,  and  not  a  government  of  men  '.  .  .  . 

"...  Ours,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  not  a  military  civilisation. 
America  is  not  aiming  at  the  production  of  the  soldiers,  whose  one  virtue 
shall  be  implicit  obedience  to  the  will  of  a  military  ruler,  but  citizens — 
men  and  women,  that  is  to  say,  who  are  not  subjects  of  the  sovereign 
power,  but  parts  of  it — not  to  be  kept  in  order  by  superior  physical  force, 
but  true  citizens  in  whom  the  State,  its  laws,  its  ideals,  its  purposes,  dwell 
and  are  safe,  from  whom  these  indeed  carnate,  whose  will  is  that  the 
Commonwealth  shall  receive  no  harm,  and  who  do  not  so  much  obey  as 
support  its  laws,  so  that  where  two  or  three  Americans  are  gathered  to- 
gether there  shall  America  spring  up  and  live,  and  her  laws  and  institu- 
tions grow  and  flourish  "  (Joseph  Lee,  Educational  Review,  Sept.,  1900, 
quoted  in  Special  Reports,  vol.  ii. ,  pt.  2,  p.  455,  by  M.  E.  Sadler). 

5 


66     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

teacher's  personal  force.  When  teachers  do  not  possess 
this,  even  in  good  schools  the  discipline  goes  to  pieces. 
With  members  of  the  other  sex  present,  girls  or  boys, 
there  is  not  the  same  positive  disorder  in  the  classroom 
we  should  get  in  such  a  case,  but  there  is  considerable 
slackness  and  inattention.  A  teacher  who  has  not  this 
personal  force  has  before  long  to  leave.  There  is,  how- 
ever, with  difficult  pupils,  reference  to  the  headmaster,  or 
principal.  Boys  and  girls  are  sent  for,  and  talked  to,  and, 
if  the  worst  comes  to  the  worst,  expelled.  The  personal 
force  of  the  principal  counts  for  a  great  deal,  as  with  us,  in 
the  maintenance  of  discipline.  While  in  some  ways  the 
work  of  a  teacher  is  easier  in  America  than  here,  in  others 
it  is  more  difficult.  We  have  a  traditional  authority  and, 
in  a  public  school,  a  reasonable  security  of  tenure  and  some 
dignity  of  status.  A  weak  teacher  can  get  along  better 
here  with  the  strong  framework  of  customary  order  to 
help  him  or  her.  Apparently  in  America  it  would  never 
do  for  a  teacher  to  assume  the  official  superiority  of  status, 
which  our  young  people  take  as  in  the  natural  order  of 
things,  and  to  act  as  a  master  or  mistress.  The  very  words 
are  unknown  in  their  school  terminology. 

Social  life  in  an  American  public  high  school  among  the 
pupils  themselves  takes  forms  somewhat  different  from 
ours.  There  is  a  good  deal  more  of  the  "  party  "  element, 
acting,  dances,  "  socials,"  etc.,  managed  by  the  boys  and 
girls  themselves.  They  have  debating  and  literary  societies, 
and  school  magazines  managed  by  committees ;  glee  and 
mandoline  clubs  are  also  very  popular.  The  pupils  of  a 
particular  year  or  "class"  choose  and  wear  a  class  pin. 
Philanthropic  school  societies  for  charitable  work  seem 
less  common  than  with  us.  Games  exist ;  in  some  schools 
the  authorities  say  they  are  too  popular  and  cause  too  much 
excitement.  Girls  are  prohibited  in  some  cases  from  play- 
ing matches  with  other  schools ;  they  would  be  so  keen  on 


American  High  Schools  67 

winning  that  they  would  do  no  work.  There  is  much  less 
regular  playing  of  games  as  a  matter  of  course  just  as  one 
eats  or  bathes ;  a  Rhodes  scholar  says  that  in  England 
brainworkers  must  play  games  to  keep  in  health  (what  we 
say  of  India),  but  that  in  America  it  is  not  necessary. 
One  difference  in  the  American  public  high  school  is  ob- 
vious :  that  teachers  are  not  so  much  in  things,  games  and 
societies  as  with  us ;  the  pupils  run  their  societies  them- 
selves. A  curious  example  of  this  separation  is  the  exist- 
ence of  secret  fraternities  and  sororities,  imitated  from  the 
Greek-letter  secret  fraternities  that  are  so  important,  so 
influential,  and,  it  is  said,  so  valuable  an  element  in  Ameri- 
can college  life.  The  National  Education  Association 
made  an  inquiry  into  the  question  in  1904.  Nearly  all  the 
headmasters  and  others  consulted  condemned  these  so- 
cieties as  undemocratic,  snobbish,  detrimental  to  good  school 
work  and  to  the  student's  own  character,  and  subversive  of 
discipline.  In  Chicago  this  winter  the  question  was  a 
burning  one,  the  City  Superintendent  having  forbidden 
fraternities  in  the  city  high  schools.  In  Kansas  City, 
where  the  same  action  was  taken,  parents  took  the  case 
into  the  courts,  denying  the  right  of  the  high  school  princi- 
pal to  penalise  students  who  belonged  to  fraternities.  The 
courts  supported  the  school. 

Associations  of  old  pupils  (alumni,  alumnae)  are  very 
important.  In  the  case  of  many  of  the  more  important 
high  schools  of  long  standing,  these  associations  are  strong, 
and  full  of  public  spirit.  Their  purpose  is  largely  social, 
but  they  often  present  gifts  to  the  school,  and  they  take 
great  interest  in  its  doings.  That  of  the  Girls'  Latin 
School,  Boston,  came  forward  publicly  this  January  to  pro- 
test against  the  transfer  of  a  teacher  to  another  high  school. 

As  regards  what  it  is  to  us,  by  far  the  most  important 
element  in  the  life  of  a  school,  its  effect  on  character,  a 
stranger  cannot  presume  to  give  an  opinion.  In  the  Edu- 

5* 


68     Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

cational  Review  of  April,  1908,  there  is  an  article  entitled 
"  The  High  Schools'  Cure  of  Souls,"  which  suggests  that  a 
good  deal  more  might  be  done  in  this  critical  and  deter- 
minate period  from  fourteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age, 
which  gives  to  the  teacher  such  a  supreme  opportunity  for 
character  building.  What  one  felt  going  round,  sitting  in 
class  listening  to  recitations,  watching  the  young  people 
in  hall  and  corridor,  and  occasionally  addressing  them  in 
assemblies,  was  that  they  were  very  different  from  our  boys 
and  girls.  They  did  not  answer  to  the  same  appeal, 
whether  of  humour  or  sentiment.  Their  machinery  works 
differently.  Pleasant,  polite,  self-confident  girls ;  diffident, 
intellectual,  half-attentive  boys — they  were  always  reserved 
and  apart,  dwelling  each  in  his  or  her  own  world,  islands 
of  personality.  One's  deepest  impression  remains  that  of 
their  real  selves  and  what  school  does  for  them  one  knows 
nothing. 


CHAPTER  II. 

PRIVATE  SCHOOLS. 
ov  rtlxri  W<{AJI  :  teachers,  not  buildings,  make  a  school. 

IN  the  previous  chapter  we  have  traced  the  rise  of  public 
high  schools  and  shown  their  importance  and  value ;  a 
very  remarkable  and  suggestive  feature  of  American 
secondary  education  is  the  place  taken  by  the  private 
schools,  including,  as  we  have  seen,  both  those  we  should 
call  private,  owned  by  individuals,  and  those  we  should 
call  endowed,  or  proprietary,  that  is  governed  by  what 
Americans  call  a  private  corporation.  Though  many  of 
the  old  academies  perished  with  the  era  of  public  high 
schools,  a  certain  number  still  survive,  and  some  of  these 
are  more  important  and  flourishing  than  ever.  There 
have,  of  course,  always  been  what  we  should  call  private 
schools,  and  of  late  years  there  have  been  a  number  of  new 
foundations  of  one  kind  and  another,  by  groups  of  persons 
interested  in  particular  educational  developments,  or  by 
institutions  who  wish  to  establish  secondary  schools  for 
some  special  reason,  e.g.,  by  a  university  in  connection 
with  its  Education  Department. 

There  have  always  been  also  denominational  schools, 
particularly  those  belonging  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
which  supports  not  only  secondary  schools  where  fees  are 
paid,  but  elementary  schools.  These  are  called  parochial 
schools,  and  are  like  non-provided  schools  in  England,  but 
they  cannot,  of  course,  in  America  receive  any  grants  of 

69 


70     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

public  money ;  they,  therefore,  are  included  among  private 
schools. 

In  all  these  various  ways  there  have  come  to  exist  a 
number  of  institutions  giving  secondary  education.  The 
last  United  States  Bureau  of  Education  Report  gives 
182,449  pupils  in  attendance  at  private  secondary  schools, 
as  against  741,940  in  public  high  schools.  However,  the 
relative  importance  of  the  two  types  is  not  to  be  measured 
altogether  by  statistics. 

The  fees  charged,  of  course,  vary,  but  in  a  good  city  day 
school  £40  to  ,£50  per  annum  is  not  unusual  or  remark- 
able. Boarding  fees  are,  of  course,  higher,  anything  from 
£130  to  £200  or  more.  If  we  exclude  denominational 
or  convent  schools  where  the  fees  are  very  often  lower, 
since  the  schools  are  in  part  supported  from  other  sources, 
it  will  be  clear  that  the  private  secondary  schools  of  which 
we  have  to  speak  are  attended  by  children  of  the  well-to- 
do  classes  only.  There  is  still  a  certain  feeling  that  it  is 
un-American  not  to  send  one's  child  to  the  public  school, 
and  some  parents  will  take  up  a  tone  of  apology  and  give 
some  special  reason  why  they  do  not  send  their  son  or 
daughter  to  the  common  school. 

There  appear  to  be  several  causes  for  the  growth  and 
development,  success  and  prosperity  of  these  various 
schools.  The  first  is  undoubtedly  the  greater  degree  of 
social  complexity  which  has  come  about  in  America 
through  the  increase  of  wealth.  There  have,  of  course, 
always  been  different  classes,  as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
points  out  in  speaking  of  the  Brahmin  caste  of  New  Eng- 
land, but  to-day  the  differences  are  wider,  and  class  feeling 
stronger  and  more  important  than  ever.  In  certain  cities 
foreign  immigration  has  altered  the  character  of  many  of 
the  public  schools  ;  parents  mention  this  again  and  again, 
and  one  may  notice  that  even  in  the  Eastern  cities  in  the 
middle-class  districts,  where  there  is  no  foreign  immigrant 


Private  Schools  71 

population,  the  public  schools  are  still  used  by  the  better- 
off  and  more  cultivated  classes.  In  Washington,  too, 
where  there  is  a  very  small  foreign  element,  and  where 
separate  coloured  schools  are  supplied  for  the  needs  of 
what  is  on  the  whole  the  poorer  part  of  the  community, 
the  public  high  school  is  also  still  the  school  for  all, 
including  the  children  of  the  many  Government  officials. 

Many  persons  of  strong  democratic  feeling  say  that  the 
wish  to  send  one's  child  to  a  private  school  is  mere  snobbish- 
ness ;  undoubtedly  the  desire  to  make  "  nice  friends  "  has 
something  to  do  with  the  willingness  of  the  parents  to 
pay  the  fees — often  very  large — necessary  in  institutions 
not  supported  by  public  money. 

But  there  are  other  and  deeper  causes  than  mere  class 
feeling.  In  many  cases  the  private  school  is  undoubtedly 
the  better;  especially  so  is  this  the  case  for  wealthy 
families  or  even  families  of  moderate  means  living  in  cities. 
An  apartment  or  flat,  seven  or  perhaps  even  fifteen  storeys 
high,  in  a  New  York  building,  is  not  the  proper  place  in 
which  to  bring  up  children ;  nor  is  a  luxurious  mansion  in 
Commonwealth  Avenue,  Boston.  Country  life,  with  its 
health,  its  simplicity  and  its  opportunities  for  practical 
training  in  country  duties  and  pleasures,  is,  of  course,  the 
ideal.  We  may  quote  from  the  prospectus  of  a  fine  pro- 
prietary school  near  New  York :  "  The  city  boy  needs  to 
be  taken  back  to  the  soil  and  to  participate  in  those  funda- 
mental industries  which  constituted  the  best  part  of  the 
education  of  our  fathers,  and  which  have  made  us  a  nation 
strong  and  efficient ".  And  thus  many  parents  are  sending 
their  children  away  from  the  big  cities  to  the  country 
boarding-schools,  where  they  have  the  additional  advantage 
of  being  removed  from  the  social  distractions  that  interfere 
so  much  with  the  progress  of  pupils  in  city  day  schools. 

The  most  forcible  reason  of  all  for  the  way  so  many 
American  parents,  who  can  afford  to  do  so,  send  their 


72     Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

children  to  private  schools,  is  that  these  care  for  the  in- 
dividual and  the  public  high  school  does  not ;  it  is  over- 
organised,  its  system  is  rigid,  its  classes  are  large,  and  there 
is  no  tradition  that  the  teachers  should  take  trouble  over 
individual  pupils,  though,  of  course,  many  of  them  un- 
doubtedly do  so. 

Again  and  again  the  writer  was  told  that  this  was  the 
reason  for  the  private  schools.  They  are  able  to  give  so 
much  individual  attention  that  in  some  cases  at  least  a 
year  can  be  saved  out  of  a  school  course,  and  in  a  really 
good  one  the  same  amount  of  work  is  done  in  eight  or 
nine  years  which  in  a  public  high  school  would  take  ten 
or  twelve.  It  is  noteworthy  that  in  order  to  save  time, 
and  to  care  for  individuals,  many  private  secondary  schools 
have  done  what  is  the  custom  in  England,  and  have  taken 
younger  children  in  the  preparatory  department ;  like  the 
Mary  Institute,  St.  Louis,  where  one  may  see,  as  in  England, 
children  of  six  and  young  women  of  eighteen  or  nineteen  in 
the  same  school. 

Although  the  private  schools  are  generally  only  for  girls 
or  for  boys,  it  does  not  appear  that  their  popularity  has 
anything  to  do  with  any  feeling  against  co-education  on 
the  part  of  the  parents ;  indeed  some  of  the  very  best  private 
day  schools,  like  the  Horace  Mann,  New  York,  are  co- 
educational. 

There  is,  however,  another  difference  to  which  more 
weight  should  be  attached ;  the  private  schools  give  re- 
ligious instruction,  whereas  the  public  high  school  is 
secular.  How  far  parents  are  affected  by  this  difference  it 
is  difficult  to  say ;  undoubtedly  many  of  the  teachers  in 
private  schools  attach  the  greatest  importance  to  religious 
instruction.  We  may  quote  from  conversation :  "  Our 
young  people  want  the  religious  element  more  and  more  ". 
"  There  is  a  growing  sense  of  the  importance  of  making 
the  schools  ethical  and  even  religious  in  tone."  "All 


Private  Schools  73 

subjects  must  be  used  as  a  humanising  influence."  It  is 
very  touching  to  see  in  these  schools  the  simple  Biblical 
instruction  with  which  we  are  so  familiar  in  England,  and 
which  is  given  in  almost  every  type  of  English  public 
secondary  school  from  Eton  and  Harrow  down  to  the 
newest  and  smallest  of  our  new  county  secondary  schools, 
but  which  is  no  longer  allowed  in  the  American  public 
school.  So  marked  is  the  movement  in  private  schools 
that  American  publishers  are  bringing  out  a  series  of 
books  to  meet  the  demand  for  this  kind  of  instruction, 
and  some  of  the  universities  are  giving  courses  of  lectures 
to  train  teachers. 

It  may  now  be  well  to  sketch  briefly  the  different  types 
of  American  private  schools  so  far  as  one  can.  Simplest 
to  understand  are  the  private  schools  for  girls,  many  of 
them  finishing  schools.  Some  are  doubtless  frivolous  and 
fashionable,  but  many  are  giving  a  very  valuable  education 
in  culture,  manners  and  character  to  girls  whose  homes 
may  have  lacked  these  qualities.  There  are  pupils  also, 
one  knows  personally,  where  a  cultivated  and  high-minded 
home  makes  an  effort  to  send  a  girl  away  for  a  time,  to  be 
under  the  influence  of  some  fine  woman  teacher  and  to 
enjoy  a  type  of  pleasant  school  life. 

In  some  ways  the  military  academies  for  boys  correspond 
with  these  schools  for  girls.  They  are  numerous  and 
popular,  and  are  said  to  be  efficient;  some  belong  to 
individuals,  some  to  governing  bodies,  but  the  writer  knows 
nothing  of  them  personally. 

There  also  exist  for  boys  schools  modelled  on  the  Eng- 
lish public  schools,  like  Groton,  Mass.,  on  the  line  between 
New  York  and  Boston,  and  St  Paul  at  Concord  ;  some  of 
the  old  academies  like  Phillips  Exeter  which  have  revived 
may  be  placed  in  this  class.  The  Educational  Review  of 
May,  1908,  declares  that  the  pressing  need  to-day  is  the 
improvement  and  endowment  of  schools  of  this  type. 


74     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

"  It  is  precisely  in  this  kind  of  school  that  the  highest 
educational  ideals  can  be  carried  out  in  the  most  untram- 
melled and  successful  way,  that  a  corporate  life  can  be 
formed  and  that  inspiring  traditions  can  accumulate. 

"  Rather  than  endow  much  further  the  great  universities 
in  America  it  were  wise  for  public-spirited  men  to  place 
upon  an  enduring  basis  such  great  academies  as  Phillips 
Exeter  and  Mercersburg  and  many  others  that  could  be 
named,  or  to  establish  new  ones.  These  schools  have  the 
possibilities  of  becoming  the  best  nurseries  for  the  man- 
hood of  the  nation.  From  them  may  go  forth  influences 
that  will  mould  the  life  of  the  day  schools  of  the  secondary 
grade,  as  is  the  case  in  England  now,  and  enable  these 
to  impart  a  culture  and  an  inspiration  that  now  in  most 
cases  they  cannot  give." 

Undoubtedly  Americans  are  much  impressed  by  the 
excellence  of  English  public  schools ;  and  naturally,  since 
the  problem  of  education  for  what  Nicholas  Murray  Butler 
calls  the  neglected  children  of  the  rich  is  now  one  of  the 
most  pressing.  He  states  that  to-day  this  is  the  class  which 
needs  the  most  thought  and  care  over  its  education  under 
modern  conditions.  The  best  way  to  educate  sons  of  very 
wealthy  men  for  service  to  the  community  has  not  yet  been 
discovered  in  America.  Interesting  experiments  in  this 
direction  are,  however,  being  made  in  another  type  of  school, 
which  is  a  combination  of  the  farm  and  the  cultivated  home. 
It  will  be  remembered  that  Kipling  placed  Harvey  Cheyne, 
the  son  of  a  multimillionaire,  on  a  Newfoundland  fishing 
schooner,  for  the  moral  and  practical  education  he  needed.1 
The  principle  of  the  new  farm  school  is  the  same,  but  in 
addition  it  performs  the  work  of  fitting  Harvey  Cheyne 
for  college ;  Latin,  Greek,  mathematics,  etc.,  being  worked 
at  very  carefully  in  the  mornings,  while  the  afternoons  are 
devoted  to  open-air  work  and  games.  The  life  is  simple 

1  Captains  Courageous.     London  :  Macmillan,  1897. 


Private  Schools  75 

but  refined;  good  plain  food  in  abundance  is  supplied, 
and  the  boys  are  expected  to  dress  for  the  evening  meal, 
if  only  in  respect  to  the  house-mother  or  other  ladies  on 
the  staff. 

In  such  schools,  of  course,  the  numbers  must  be  small, 
and  consequently  the  fees  high.  The  headmaster  must 
be  a  personality  and  the  place  must  be  right  in  the 
country,  away  from  the  injurious  influences  of  urban 
life. 

The  writer  was  fortunate  enough  to  spend  some  days 
in  such  a  school,  which  is  only  at  present  just  beginning, 
but  which  shows  the  characteristic  features  of  the  type. 
One  would  be  very  glad  for  one's  brothers  to  be  brought 
up  there. 

The  time-table  is  as  follows  : — 

7  A.M.      Rise. 
7.30         Breakfast. 

8.30        Assembly.         (Prayers  and  gymnastics.) 
9-11.30  Four  recitations.    (Lessons.) 
Then  recess,  for  fruit  and  gymnastics. 
Then  two  more  recitations. 
1.15         Dinner. 

2.15         Open-air  work  and  games. 
(3.15         Demerits,  if  any,  to  be  worked  off.) 
4.30-6      Study. 
6.30        Supper. 
7-8.30     Study. 

Then  recreation,  often  music  and  indoor  games. 
9.15          Bed. 
9.30         Lights  out. 

Demerits  mean  that  penalties  have  been  incurred  for 
breaking  school  rules  or  for  bad  work,  and  that  they 
have  to  be  worked  off  by  fatigue-duty,  such  as  chopping 
wood  for  the  house.  This  is  the  system  relied  on  for  the 
maintenance  of  discipline. 


76     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

The  school  began  in  1905  with  ten  pupils  and  has  now 
twenty-five.  The  boys  built  their  own  gymnasium,  work- 
ing out  the  drawing  and  arithmetic  necessary.  They  look 
after  animals  and  do  real  farm  work.  Each  is  allowed  to 
keep  a  horse,  but  he  has  to  feed  and  groom  it  himself, 
and  to  some  of  these  rich  men's  sons  the  game  is  not  worth 
the  candle.  The  headmaster  states  that  the  capacity  of 
boys  for  practical  work  is  very  marked,  and  that  it  is  a 
means  of  training  them  to  be  self-reliant  and  responsible 
in  manhood.  No  more  time  is  required  to  fit  for  college 
than  in  the  public  high  school,  since  greater  individual 
attention  is  obtained,  and  yet  all  the  farm  work,  carpentry, 
games,  etc.,  are  got  into  the  day,  and  no  time  is  wasted. 
The  teaching  is  of  a  high  order,  given  by  specialists  to 
small  groups ;  it  is  considered  essential  to  have  women 
on  the  staff. 

The  privately  owned  school  for  girls,  both  day  and 
boarding,  plays  a  very  important  part  in  the  education  of 
young  women  of  the  wealthy  and  highly  cultivated  classes. 
These  do  not  in  the  Eastern  cities  attend  the  public  high 
school,  generally  speaking.  In  the  West,  and  in  smaller 
places  everywhere,  they  may  attend  the  public  school  when 
they  are  little,  and  afterwards  are  sent  to  boarding-school, 
especially  to  Washington,  to  the  regions  round  New  York 
and  Philadelphia,  or  to  New  England.  It  is  said  that  a 
teacher  who  has  a  good  college  qualification  and  is  a  gentle- 
woman can  quite  easily  set  up  a  private  school  on  borrowed 
money,  and  that  if  she  is  an  administrator  and  a  personality 
the  school  will  speedily  be  successful,  and  very  valuable 
as  a  piece  of  property.  There  is  thus  a  tendency  for  the 
very  best  women  teachers  to  go  out  of  the  public  schools, 
where,  as  we  shall  see  in  Chapter  IX.,  there  is  very  little 
opportunity  of  advancement  for  them,  and  to  start  for 
themselves.  Many  of  these  girls'  private  schools  have  a 
very  high  reputation  and  do  really  good  work,  preparing 


Private  Schools  77 

for  college.  The  fees  are,  of  course,  large ;  but  poorer 
parents  of  the  cultivated  classes  often  make  great  efforts 
to  send  their  daughters  to  such  schools  for  the  sake  of  the 
moral  influence  and  the  social  training  given  there.  The 
nouveau  riche  of  the  West,  the  Far  West  especially,  also 
sends  his  girls  to  such  schools  to  receive  the  education  in 
culture  and  manners  which  the  pioneer  conditions  of  the 
frontier  make  difficult  at  home,  and  which  fits  the  Ameri- 
can heiress  to  take  her  proper  place  in  Eastern  and 
in  European  society.  The  life  of  such  a  school  is  very 
pleasant,  the  surroundings  refined  and  luxurious,  the  teach- 
ing staff  large  in  proportion  to  the  numbers,  and  well 
qualified  both  socially  and  intellectually.  The  session  is 
short,  October  to  the  end  of  May.  Accomplishments  and 
modern  languages  are  carefully  taught.  A  boarding  fee  of 
£200  ($1,000)  without  extras  for  music  and  art  is  quite 
moderate,  the  day  fee  for  tuition  in  the  case  of  day  scholars 
being  at  least  £50.  Washington  is  full  of  such  schools, 
the  climate  and  location  of  the  city,  the  national  museums, 
libraries  and  art  collections,  and  the  social  prestige  of  the 
federal  capital  being  much  in  its  favour.  Boston,  too,  with 
its  intellectual  and  artistic  reputation  is  another  centre  for 
these  schools.  The  history  of  art  appears  to  be  very  well 
taught  in  them,  and  their  equipment  includes  much  fine 
illustrative  material.1 

The  public  interest  in  the  problem  of  cities  and  the 
movement  towards  philanthropy  among  wealthy  American 
women  has  brought  sociology  into  the  curriculum  too. 
We  quote  from  a  prospectus  of  a  Washington  semin- 
ary: — 

1 "  At  no  other  time  in  the  life  of  a  young  girl  is  she  so  susceptible  to  the 
refining  influences  of  a  beautiful  and  harmonious  environment  as  during 
those  plastic  years  which  she  spends  at  boarding-school.  A  deep  con- 
sciousness of  this  fact  has  been  the  guiding  principle  in  all  the  furnishing 
and  adorning  of  the  school  home  "  (Prospectus). 


78     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

SOCIOLOGY. 

This  subject,  which  is  claiming  a  prominent  place  in  the 
curriculum  of  colleges  and  higher  schools,  is  being  made  a 
serious  feature  of  the  work.  The  course  is  elective,  and  is 
carried  on  by  means  of  semi- weekly  lectures.  While  no  one 
text-book  is  used  for  class-work,  a  good  sociological  library, 
selected  under  the  direction  of  Hon.  Carroll  D.  Wright,  U.S. 
Commissioner  of  Labour,  is  in  the  reading-room  at  the  service 
of  the  students.  The  subjects  treated  are  :  Immigration,  Popu- 
lation, Capital  and  Labour,  Profit-Sharing,  Arbitration,  Child 
Labour,  Sweat  Shops,  Improved  Housing  Conditions,  Tramps, 
Prison  Reformation,  Juvenile  Courts,  Settlements  and  other 
allied  topics.  Class-work  is  supplemented  by  outside  reading, 
by  lectures  from  practical  workers,  and  by  correspondence  with 
some  of  the  foremost  leaders  in  the  sociological  field. 

Simple  religious  instruction  takes  in  general  a  very  im- 
portant place,  and  attendance  at  devotional  exercises  is 
often  compulsory — a  marked  contrast  to  the  public  school. 
In  Canada  the  writer  found  American  girls  in  denomina- 
tional schools  and  in  convents,  who  appear  to  have  been 
sent  there  to  profit  by  the  definite  moral  and  religious 
influences  of  these  institutions. 

It  is  clear  from  the  regulations  laid  down  in  the  pro- 
spectuses of  these  expensive  private  schools  that  the  au- 
thorities have  to  struggle  for  simplicity  of  dress,1  and 
regularity  of  attendance  against  the  distractions  of  society 
and  of  wealth.  The  time-table  and  the  official  statement 
of  curriculum  of  one  of  these  schools  will  further  illustrate 
their  character. 

1 "  It  will  be  required  in  the  case  of  every  pupil  entering  the  school  that 
the  entire  outfit  be  in  perfect  harmony  with  the  demands  of  a  refined 
good  sense,  and  with  the  necessities  of  healthful  physical  development 
Hence,  the  dress  of  pupils  must  be  simple  and  inexpensive.  An  elaborate 
wardrobe  is  unnecessary  and  out  of  keeping  with  the  conditions  of  school 
life.  If  unsuitable  clothing  and  costly  jewellery  are  brought  by  pupils, 
the  principals  will  return  these  articles  to  parents  at  their  risk." 


Private  Schools  79 

DAILY  SCHEDULE. 

Rising  Bell 7.00  A.M. 

Breakfast 7.30  A.M. 

School  Hours         ...       9  A.M.  to  1.30  P.M. 
Luncheon      ......     1.30  P.M. 

Afternoon  Walk     .....     2.30  P.M. 

Study  Period          .         .         .          3.45  to  5.45  P.M. 
Dinner  .......     6.00  P.M. 

Prayers          ......     7.30  P.M. 

Evening  Study  Period     .         .          7.45  to  9.20  P.M. 

"  Abend  Brot" 9.20  P.M. 

Lights  out      ......   10.00  P.M. 

The  school  endeavours  to  meet  a  demand  known  to  be  im- 
perative by  all  acquainted  with  the  problem  of  the  education  of 
girls — the  demand  for  a  school  more  systematic,  thorough  and 
modern  than  the  typical  boarding-school,  yet  less  severe  and 
arduous  than  our  women's  colleges.  The  Preparatory  Course 
gives  pupils  the  choice  of  fitting  for  admission  to  college  or  to  our 
own  Collegiate  Course.  This  collegiate  work  consists  of  selec- 
tions from  the  college  curriculum  adapted  to  the  needs  of  those 
young  women  who  desire  a  thorough  training  in  selected  branches, 
but  who  desire  also  to  avoid  the  strain  of  a  full  college  course. 

Special  emphasis  is  given  to  the  following  subjects  :  English 
Language,  Literature  and  Composition ;  Modern  Languages ; 
History  of  Art ;  General  History ;  American  Political  History ; 
Music,  both  Vocal  and  Instrumental ;  Domestic  Science. 

The  course  of  study  of  an  excellent  private  school  in 
Boston  is  as  follows,  from  ten  to  eighteen  years  of  age, 
with  eight  classes  or  years  like  an  English  high  school  for 

girls  :— 

English  8  years. 

History  7  years. 

Latin  3  years  or  6  years. 

Mathematics  6  years. 

Drawing  3  years. 


8o     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

One  modern  language  and  one  science  each  year.  Within 
these  limits  freedom  of  choice  is  allowed ;  summer  reading 
and  study  are  required  during  the  long  vacation.  There 
are  definite  entrance  requirements,  including  French,  his- 
tory and  geography,  at  ten  years  of  age.  The  fees  are 
£40  to  £60  day  tuition,  and  there  is  a  long  list  of  pupils 
waiting  for  admission.  The  history  course  is  interesting ; 
United  States  first,  then  in  successive  years  Greek,  Roman, 
English,  French ;  then  in  the  sixth  year  mediaeval  and 
modern,  and  in  the  seventh  United  States  again,  or 
Greek  and  Roman.  With  this  may  be  compared  the 
course  of  a  boys'  private  school  of  the  farm  type;  this 
course  is  six  years  ;  French  or  German  is  begun  in  the  first, 
Latin  in  the  second,  algebra  in  the  third,  geometry  in  the 
fourth,  Greek  in  the  fifth,  and  physics  in  the  sixth.  The 
history  course  is  Stories  I.,  America  II.,  Eastern  nations 
and  Greece  III.,  Rome  and  Modern  Europe  IV.,  England 
V.,  United  States  VI.  This  school  prepares  for  college 
and  has  a  fee  of  £150  boarding  and  £4.0  day.  It  has 
property  through  gifts  and  is  not  conducted  for  private 
profit. 

Some  of  the  girls'  private  schools,  too,  are  passing  into 
the  proprietary  or  endowed  stage,  so  strong  is  their  hold  on 
public  confidence  and  support.  As  may  be  imagined,  many 
of  them  are  doing  excellent  work,  largely  owing  to  their 
freedom  and  their  means.  The  amount  per  pupil  spent  in 
the  free  public  high  school  out  of  the  rates  is  often  not 
large  enough  to  cover  the  cost  of  a  first-rate  secondary 
education  ;  in  the  private  school  the  fee  is  large  enough. 

It  is  most  interesting  to  one  who  has  known  the  recent 
development  of  girls'  secondary  education  in  England  to 
see  some  of  these  first-rate  American  private  schools  de- 
veloping into  what  we  should  call  public  institutions,  just 
as  the  Frances  Mary  Buss  School,  in  North  London,  did 
between  1860  and  1880.  There  has  existed  in  Cambridge, 


Private  Schools  81 

Mass.,  since  1866  a  private  school,  now  called  after  its 
founder  the  Oilman  School,  which  has  become  in  1907  a 
private  corporation  with  a  governing  body  of  six  directors, 
four  being  Harvard  professors,  and  a  board  of  lady  visi- 
tors, wives  of  university  dignitaries  and  others.  It  is  thus 
a  permanent  institution  now,  and  will  doubtless  receive  gifts, 
and  possibly  endowments  as  time  goes  on.  It  has  a  very 
pretty  and  well-arranged  building,  and  a  separate  residence 
for  boarders,  the  fees  being  £200,  the  day  fee  £20  to  £40 
according  to  age.  It  prepares  for  college  and  for  home 
life.  The  teachers  are  largely  Radcliffe  graduates ;  there 
is  no  fixed  course  of  study,  the  headmistress's  judgment 
being  final.  Clearly  it  is  developing  into  a  type  very  similar 
to  that  of  a  very  good  English  girls'  high  school  in  a  uni- 
versity town.  One  wonders  whether  some  of  the  Boston 
private  schools  will  not  follow  the  same  line  of  growth. 

HISTORY  OF  THE  SCHOOL. 

The  Gilman  School  was  opened  twenty-two  years  ago  by  Mr. 
Arthur  Gilman,  who  laid  the  foundation  of  what  is  now  Radcliffe 
College.  When  the  school  outgrew  its  earlier  quarters,  Mr. 
Gilman  planned  and  built  the  admirable  schoolhouse  now  in 
use,  No.  36  Concord  Avenue,  near  Craigie  Street.  He  also 
erected,  near  by,  at  No.  2 1  Chauncy  Street,  the  residence  for 
pupils,  called  Margaret  Winthrop  Hall.  In  the  desire  to  per- 
petuate an  excellent  school,  from  which  impaired  health  com- 
pelled its  founder  to  retire,  some  of  the  friends  of  Mr.  Gilman 
joined  in  incorporating,  under  the  name  of  the  Gilman  School, 
what  he  had  originally  called  the  Cambridge  School  for  Girls. 
The  school  is  now  incorporated  as  a  permanent  institution. 

The  Corporation  is  managed  by  six  directors.  Two-thirds 
of  this  board  are  professors  in  Harvard  University,  who  also 
instruct  in  Radcliffe  College.  The  administration  of  the  school 
has  been  put  in  charge  of  this  board,  in  order  to  secure  for  the 
Gilman  School  a  high  standard  of  scholarship  under  skilled 
supervision. 

6 


82     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

ORGANISATION. 

The  school  is  organised  into  four  departments  adapted  for 
pupils  of  all  ages : — 

I.  The  Primary,  for  little  girls. 

II.  The  Intermediate,  for  girls  between  the  ages  of  eight 
and  twelve. 

III.  The  Academic,  for  older  girls  who  do  not  contemplate 

a  subsequent  college  course. 

IV.  The  College    Preparatory,  for  girls  who  intend  to  go 

to  college. 

The  Oilman  School  has  for  many  years  prepared  students  for 
the  several  colleges  for  girls,  and  will  continue  to  do  so.  But 
it  has  long  been  considered  a  preparatory  school  for  Radcliffe. 

The  Board  of  Visitors  consists  of  ladies,  many  of  whom 
are  members  of  the  governing  boards  of  Radcliffe  College ;  they 
visit  the  school  for  purposes  of  observation  and  give  valuable 
suggestions  and  advice. 

The  Mary  Institute,  in  St.  Louis,  is  another  example  of 
what  we  should  call  a  girls'  public  school.  It  is  owned  by 
the  Washington  University,  through  a  special  board  of 
governors.  Its  fine  building  stands  in  the  best  residential 
district,  and  is  attended,  we  understand,  by  the  highest  social 
class.  Except  for  the  not  unimportant  difference  that  the 
head  is  a  man,  it  is  very  like  one  of  the  G.P.D.S.  Trust 
schools.  The  organisation  is  interesting,  something  like 
Miss  Beale's  plan  for  the  Ladies'  College,  Cheltenham. 
There  are  three  sections,  each  with  its  own  study  hall,  in 
the  charge  of  a  senior  mistress  ;  the  junior,  six  to  ten ;  the 
middle,  eleven  to  fifteen ;  and  the  upper,  for  the  older  girls, 
almost  young  women.  These  are  taught  in  classrooms, 
and  return  to  the  hall  to  study ;  the  mistress  in  charge  is 
responsible  for  their  moral  training.  The  numbers  are 
about  500. 

The  school  most  resembling  a  girls'  high  school  in 
England  of  any  the  writer  knows  in  America  is,  however, 


Private  Schools  83 

the  seminary  of  the  Milwaukee  Downer  College,  in  Mil- 
waukee, on  Lake  Michigan,  which  has  a  woman  head  as  in 
England.  We  should  call  it  public,  for  it  has  a  board  of 
trustees,  is  established  by  State  law,  and  is  largely  en- 
dowed, both  by  private  benefactions  and  by  the  gifts  of 
associations,  including  its  own  alumnae.  As  the  name  im- 
plies it  gives  degrees,  being  formed  from  two  of  the 
smaller  colleges  chartered  in  the  early  days  of  Wisconsin, 
Milwaukee  1851,  and  Downer  1855,  at  Fox  Lake.  By 
legislative  enactment  the  two  were  united  ;  a  fine  new  site 
of  twenty-one  acres  to  the  North  outside  Milwaukee,  near 
the  shores  of  the  lake,  was  bought  by  the  trustees,  and  the 
large  and  costly  buildings  have  gradually  grown  up  during 
the  last  ten  years,  the  Home  Economics  building  in  De- 
cember, 1907,  being  still  in  the  contractor's  hands.  The 
group  with  its  red  brick  and  central  tower  reminds  one 
very  strongly  of  Girton.  Many  of  the  students  board,  and 
the  life  of  the  place  is  essentially  that  of  a  residential  insti- 
tution, but  there  are  many  day  girls  from  the  beautiful 
houses  of  the  Milwaukee  suburbs,  the  numbers  being  about 
500  in  all.  The  fee  is  £20,  and  the  boarding  fee  £60  to 
£70  inclusive.  This  is,  of  course,  low,  owing  to  the  endow- 
ment and  the  provision  of  buildings.  The  college  depart- 
ment and  the  seminary  are  separately  organised ;  few  stay 
in  the  college  department  to  the  degree  stage,  as  they  go 
on  to  larger  colleges  or  universities  for  the  concluding 
years,  gaining  credit  for  the  time  and  the  studies  they  have 
taken  at  Milwaukee  Downer.  We  quote  from  the  pro- 
spectus : — 

The  seminary  is  a  secondary  school.  To  enter  its  regular 
classes  the  student  must  have  completed  the  work  represented 
by  the  Eighth  grade  in  standard  grammar  schools.  Very  few 
are  sufficiently  developed  and  well-informed  to  be  able  to  carry 
on  the  full  work  under  the  age  of  fourteen. 

The  plan  of  study  in  this  department  covers  four  years  and 

6* 


84     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

includes  four  courses:  the  Ancient  Classical,  the  Modern 
Classical,  the  English,  and  the  Literary.  A  diploma  may  be 
issued  to  a  student  who  completes  any  one  of  these  courses. 
The  Classical  and  English  courses  fit  for  corresponding  courses 
in  any  of  the  best  colleges.  The  Literary  course  is  offered  to 
meet  the  needs  of  those  who  wish  to  give  their  principal 
attention  to  the  studies  of  Languages,  History  and  Science. 
This  course  does  not  prepare  for  college,  as  it  does  not  require 
mathematics. 

The  seminary  is  accredited  for  admission  without  examina- 
tion by  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  Beloit  College,  the  Uni- 
versity of  Chicago,  the  University  of  Michigan,  Wellesley,  Smith 
Mount  Holyoke  and  Vassar  Colleges.  Its  work  corresponds 
with  that  of  the  best  fitting  schools  for  Eastern  colleges.  Much 
attention  is  paid  to  the  languages.  On  account  of  the  general 
requirement  of  Eastern  colleges  for  women,  for  which  a  number 
of  students  are  preparing,  three  years  of  work  in  the  modern 
languages  are  offered  in  the  college  preparatory  courses.  The 
growing  demand  for  modern  languages  has  also  led  to  the  offer 
of  four  years  of  French  and  German  in  the  English  and  Literary 
courses. 

Let  us  suppose  that  a  clever  girl  enters  the  seminary  at 
fourteen  and  goes  through  its  four  years'  course ;  she  then 
passes  on  to  the  college  department  for  two  years.  The 
work  here,  like  much  of  the  work  in  the  smaller  American 
colleges,  corresponds  roughly  with  what  is  done  in  a  good 
VI-  Form  in  England.  Such  a  girl  will  have  had  a  career 
corresponding  very  closely  with  the  six  years'  course  in  an 
English  high  school  from  the  Lower  III.  to  the  Upper 
VI.  Forms.  The  Milwaukee  girl  will  go  on  to  the  Univer- 
sity of  Wisconsin  or  elsewhere  for  a  shortened  course  of 
three  years,  and  she  will  have  done  in  America  very  much 
what  the  high  school  girl  who  goes  to  college  does  in 
England.  A  girl's  life,  too,  at  Milwaukee  Downer  is  very 
much  like  what  she  would  have  in  a  high  school  in  London 


Private  Schools  85 

or  Manchester.  She  will  have  begun  the  day  with  school 
prayers,  have  taken  the  same  courses  of  study,  played 
games  (though  not  quite  so  much),  gone  to  meetings  of 
school  societies  with  her  comrades,  and  most  important  of 
all,  have  been  under  the  strong  personal  influence  of  women 
teachers  directed  by  a  woman  head.  The  tone  is  just 
what  we  know  at  home,  the  difficulties  and  problems  and 
methods  of  government  much  the  same.  The  very  words 
of  the  official  calendar  might  be  a  summary  of  our  purpose 
in  England : — 

The  aim  of  the  college  is  to  offer  an  opportunity  for  a 
thorough  and  liberal  training,  and  to  make  a  Christian  institu- 
tion for  the  higher  education  of  girls  and  women,  not  in  the  in- 
terest of  any  sect,  but  distinctly  recognising  the  value  of  religion 
as  an  essential  element  in  a  rightly  developed  character. 

The  course  of  instruction  in  the  seminary  department  is 
very  much  like  that  in  an  ordinary  American  public  high 
school.  There  are  three  regular  classes  preparing  for 
college,  including  Latin,  Greek,  mathematics,  English, 
ancient  history  and  physics ;  the  modern  class  with  modern 
languages  in  place  of  Greek,  the  English  with  options  in 
languages,  and  a  greater  amount  of  history  and  science. 
There  has  also  been  developed  a  supplementary  course  for 
more  backward  and  duller  girls,  with  a  good  deal  of 
English  and  history,  easy  science,  one  foreign  language  and 
no  mathematics.  Music,  art  and  home  economics  may  be 
taken  in  this  course,  which,  of  course,  does  not  prepare  for 
college  but  for  home  life.  Obviously  this  course  of  study 
resembles  that  being  developed  at  present  in  some  of  the 
English  high  schools.  Attendance  at  Bible  lessons  once  a 
week  throughout  the  courses  is  compulsory. 

Milwaukee  Downer  College  has  done  a  good  deal  in  the 
study  of  home  economics;  not  only  is  it  an  elective  for  the 
ordinary  girl  whether  in  the  seminary  or  the  college  de- 


86     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

partment,  but  there  has  been  established  a  two  years' 
training  course  for  teachers,  1902.  This  requires  the  com- 
pletion of  a  good  high  school  course  including  physics.  A 
good  deal  of  science  is  studied  during  the  training  course 
itself;  further  details  will  be  given  in  Chapter  VI. 

Very  different  from  the  separate  girls'  schools  described 
above  are  the  two  university  co-educational  schools  that 
have  done  such  pioneer  work  in  education,  the  Chicago 
University  High  and  Elementary  School,  and  the  Horace 
Mann  High  and  Elementary  School  attached  to  Columbia, 
New  York.  Each  has  an  interesting  and  suggestive  history, 
and  is  destined  doubtless  to  be  even  more  interesting  and 
suggestive.  The  writer  was  able  to  see  but  little  of  the 
Chicago  School,  which  also  at  the  time  of  her  visit  was  in 
a  transition  state  owing  to  the  lamented  death  of  its  Dean, 
Wilbur  S.  Jackman,  a  most  brilliant  and  original  educator, 
whose  place  cannot  easily  be  filled. 

The  school  has  arisen  from  a  combination  of  privately 
founded  institutions,  taken  over  by  the  university  as  part 
of  its  education  department. 

The  Chicago  Institute,  founded  by  Mrs.  Emmons  McCor- 
mick  Elaine  and  presided  over  by  the  late  Colonel  Francis  W. 
Parker ;  the  Laboratory  School  of  the  Department  of  Education 
in  the  University,  the  founder  and  director  of  which  was  Pro- 
fessor John  Dewey,  Head  of  the  Department  of  Education ;  the 
South  Side  Academy,  the  Dean  of  which  was  Associate  Professor 
William  B.  Owen,  of  the  University ;  and  the  Chicago  Manual 
Training  School,  whose  head  for  many  years  has  been  Dr. 
Henry  H.  Belfield.  There  is,  therefore,  gathered  in  one  group 
of  buildings  a  complete  school  system — kindergarten,  elementary, 
high  school  and  college — with  opportunities  for  training  teachers 
under  the  most  favourable  educational  surroundings,  and  with 
all  the  privileges  of  a  great  university.  The  fundamental  element 
in  the  significance  of  this  School  of  Education  is  the  desire  and 
resolute  purpose  to  promote  the  cause  of  education,  not  only 


Private  Schools  87 

here,  but  everywhere,  through  inspiring  teachers  with  more  vital 
and  adequate  conceptions  of  the  nature  of  their  work,  and 
through  furnishing  them  with  the  intellectual  equipments  neces- 
sary to  make  them  effective  and  apt  in  carrying  out  such 
broadened  and  deep  ideals  (Official  Announcement). 

The  buildings  are  magnificent  and  have  ample  and  well- 
planted  grounds,  including  one  and  a  quarter  acres  of 
school  garden.  The  equipment  for  manual  training  is 
exceedingly  fine,  as  is  also  the  educational  museum.  Pre- 
paration for  college  has  become  part  of  the  work  of  the 
high  school,  which  offers  four  courses :  Classical,  Modern 
Language,  Scientific,  and  Technological,  English  history, 
science  and  mathematics  being  common  to  all.  It  is  in'- 
teresting  to  notice  that  the  school  is  now  sending  on  to 
the  university  pupils  who  from  the  beginning  have  been 
trained  according  to  the  reform  methods,  first  practised 
by  Professor  Dewey  in  the  elementary  school  attached ; 
it  will  be  interesting  to  see  how  these  pupils  do ;  they  are 
said  to  show  a  marked  degree  of  intelligence.  The  ele- 
mentary school  at  present  numbers  500  pupils,  the  high 
school  600;  the  fee  being  $150  (£30).  Work  begins  at 
8.45,  lunch  is  i  to  1.30 ;  the  lunch-room  arrangements  are 
extraordinarily  good.  A  few  classes  meet  after  lunch. 

In  the  elementary  school  is  to  be  seen  completely  carried 
out  the  new  methods  of  the  Dewey  Reform.  Every  teacher 
is  a  specialist  of  high  general  culture,  who  is  thus  able  to  ( 
use  with  intention  all  the  handwork  characteristic  of  the 
Dewey  Reform,  and  to  lead  the  children  therefore  to  gain 
from  what  they  are  doing  the  maximum  of  power  and 
actual  knowledge.  The  main  lesson  gathered  from  a 
somewhat  hurried  visit  was  that  with  such  teachers  the 
system  would  work,  and  the  children  actually  did  acquire 
a  fair  amount  of  ordinary  elementary  knowledge,  compo- 
sition, geography,  arithmetic,  etc. ;  however,  it  appeared 


88     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

that  the  ordinary  teacher  of  young  children  in  England  at 
present,  who  is  rarely  a  college  graduate,  and  not  always 
the  possessor  of  broad  liberal  culture  and  marked  ability, 
would  probably  not  be  able  to  apply  the  Dewey  methods 
so  as  to  secure  the  intellectual  results  desired.  The  children 
would  be  taught  mechanically,  and  the  special  purpose 
would  not  be  carried  out ;  in  other  words,  one  gathered 
that  the  new  system  could  only  satisfactorily  be  applied  by 
first-rate  people,  such  as  undoubtedly  they  have  in  the 
university  school,  and  as  we  possibly  could  have  in  England 
if  we  had  a  fee  of  ,£30  or  even  £20  for  the  teaching  of 
a  child  from  seven  to  ten  years  of  age.  After  all,  in  edu- 
cation as  in  war,  the  flow  of  the  stream  of  gold  makes 
all  the  difference. 

The  Horace  Mann  Schools  belonging  to  Columbia  Uni- 
versity have  been  referred  to  in  these  pages  again  and  again 
in  various  relations,  and  not  unnaturally,  since  they  form 
together  one  of  the  finest  educational  institutions  the 
writer  has  ever  known.  They  have,  of  course,  extraordinary 
and  unusual  advantages :  the  large  fee,  from  £1$  in  the 
kindergarten  to  £50  in  the  high  school,  which  means  that 
cost  need  hardly  be  considered  ;  magnificent  buildings,  the 
gift  of  friends  of  education  in  New  York  ;  the  influence  and 
support  of  the  members  of  Columbia  University,  under 
whose  auspices  they  work,  and  the  fact  that  results  from 
this  relation — that  they  embody  the  ideas  and  schemes  of 
some  of  the  finest  teachers  and  educational  experts  in 
America.  The  administration  is  also  entirely  independent, 
whether  of  political  influences,  the  clamour  of  parents,  or 
the  demand  of  external  government  officials  like  the  Board 
of  Education.  They  have  all  the  strength  of  Columbia 
back  of  them,  and  that  is  enough.  It  is  perhaps  not  to 
be  wondered  at  that  these  schools  are  what  they  are ;  prob- 
ably we  in  England  could  do  as  well  if  we  had  the  same 
resources. 


Private  Schools  89 

Originally  the  Horace  Mann  School  was  established  (in 
1887)  as  a  practising  school  for  Teachers'  College  ;  it  was 
intended  especially  to  promote  manual  training,  and  to 
demonstrate  the  part  that  manual  training  should  play  in 
both  elementary  and  secondary  schools.  Even  now,  a  good 
deal  of  handwork  is  prescribed  in  the  elementary  school, 
and  manual  training  is  elective  in  the  high  school.  Though 
land  at  Morningside  Heights  is  exceedingly  valuable,  it 
has  a  school  garden  adjoining  the  building,  which,  with  a 
greenhouse,  provides  excellent  opportunities  for  Nature 
Study.  As  the  school  grew  it  was  found  that  pupils  had 
to  be  prepared  for  college,  since  the  class  of  New  Yorkers 
who  attend  go  on  to  college  almost  as  a  matter  of  course ; 
the  headmaster  says  that  90  per  cent,  of  the  pupils  intend 
to  do  this,  and  at  least  80  per  cent,  of  those  who  finish  the 
course  as  a  matter  of  fact  actually  do  go  to  college.  Thus 
the  curriculum  now  is  of  a  more  ordinary  type  than  at  first, 
and  it  has  been  found  impossible  to  allow  the  students  in 
training  to  do  their  practising  work  there,  a  difficulty  which 
is  easily  realised  by  those  in  England  who  have  had 
such  students  teaching  in  schools  which  prepare  for  ex- 
aminations, or  are  otherwise  obliged  to  waste  no  time. 
The  Horace  Mann  School  is  now  used  as  a  model  of  good 
teaching  where  the  students  in  training  observe ;  another 
school,  the  Speyer,  which  is  free,  has  been  established 
close  by  to  serve  for  experimental  and  practising  work. 

As  we  have  said,  the  school  is  co-educational  ;  its  1,000 
pupils  seem  to  be  about  equally  divided,  boys  and  girls. 
It  is  practically  full,  and  applicants  have  to  wait  for 
admission.  One  of  its  marked  characteristics  is  the  short 
time  given  ;  in  the  elementary  as  well  as  the  high  school 
there  is  only  the  morning  session ;  there  is,  of  course,  no 
Saturday  work ;  and  the  holidays  are  very  long,  since  the 
climate  in  New  York  makes  a  long  summer  vacation  a 
necessity,  and  the  social  position  of  the  parents  is  such  that 


90     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

they  take  their  children  into  the  country  or  to  Europe  for 
a  long  period  in  the  summer.  This  year  term  ends  2pth 
May,  the  session  having  begun  on  i8th  September,  a  fort- 
night at  Christmas  and  ten  days  at  Easter  as  well  as  odd 
holidays  being  given.  The  authorities  of  the  school  justly 
boast  that  they  get  the  same  work  done  as  schools  which 
have  a  much  longer  time ;  this  gives  a  very  interesting 
example  of  the  value  of  intensity  in  school  work,  and  of  the 
avoidance  of  the  waste  and  slackness  often  seen  in  schools 
which  have  long  hours  and  long  sessions.  In  the  afternoons 
there  are  games,  gymnastics,  and  meetings  of  school 
societies  just  as  there  are  in  England.  There  is  also  a  dis- 
tinct beginning  of  the  Form  system,  each  teacher,  man  or 
woman,  being  responsible  for  a  certain  number  of  boys  and 
girls  who  belong  to  his  or  her  room,  and  who  have  an 
opportunity  of  seeing  their  form  teacher  both  before  and 
after  school.  It  was  indeed  quite  like  home  to  see  there 
what  one  noticed  hardly  anywhere  else,  the  teacher  hunt 
up  some  individual  pupil  over  some  detail  of  work  or  con- 
duct, and  the  pupil  wait  about  to  get  help  or  advice  from 
the  teacher.  It  appears,  too,  that  the  teachers  are  expected 
to  take  an  interest  in  games  and  school  societies  just  as  in 
England. 

Physical  education  is  given,  too,  under  all  but  ideal  con- 
ditions. The  Thompson  Memorial  Building,  opened  in 
1904,  was  given  to  provide  everything  necessary  for  the 
care  of  health  and  for  physical  training  under  day  school 
conditions,  including  admirably  equipped  dressing-rooms 
fitted  up  with  marble  slabs  and  other  perfect  arrangements, 
with  hot-air  drying-rooms,  lockers,  etc.  "  It  adjoins  the 
main  building  on  the  West,  and  contains,  in  addition  to 
the  offices,  examination,  conference  laboratory,  and  lecture- 
rooms  of  the  Department  of  Physical  Education,  a  large 
gymnasium  and  smaller  exercise-rooms,  hand-ball  courts, 
bowling  alleys,  bath-rooms,  and  a  swimming  pool  for  the 


Private  Schools  91 

women  of  the  college  and  the  pupils  of  the  Horace  Mann 
School."  It  was  delightful  to  see  children,  girls,  and 
youths  enjoying  all  these  facilities  in  the  intervals  of  class 
lessons  and  private  study  in  the  library  and  elsewhere. 
All  these  buildings,  including  Teachers'  College,  form,  it 
should  be  understood,  one  continuous  whole,  and  stand  on 
1 2 1st  Street  opposite  the  university.  Official  documents 
of  the  school  state  that  the  pupils,  living  in  a  great  city 
where  sleep  even  is  often  disturbed,  and  where  late  hours 
are  too  common,  are  below  the  average  in  endurance, 
muscular  strength  and  nervous  control.  They  thus  especi- 
ally need  suitable  physical  exercises,  manual  training,  play, 
and,  wherever  possible,  simplicity.  Many  are  only  children, 
who  need  the  social  influence  that  comes  from  working 
with  others,  and  the  development  of  the  social  spirit  in  the 
schoolroom.  They  are  extraordinarily  independent  and 
able  to  take  care  of  themselves ;  one  cannot  easily  forget 
seeing  a  half  form,  about  twelve  children,  of  seven  years 
of  age,  little  boys  and  little  girls,  going  along  the  corridor 
by  themselves,  entering  the  lift  of  course,  without  a  teacher, 
and  going  up  to  the  top  of  the  building  to  their  manual 
training  class  in  perfect  order.  Most  English  teachers  of 
young  children  would  not  dare  to  let  their  seven-year-olds 
do  all  this  alone,  and  if  they  did,  and  there  were  an  acci- 
dent, the  law  would  probably  consider  there  had  been 
culpable  negligence  on  the  part  of  the  school. 

The  curriculum  of  the  elementary  school  is  arranged  in 
seven  grades  from  six  to  thirteen  years  of  age ;  the  high 
school  course  is  of  five  years,  from  thirteen  to  eighteen. 
This  obviously  resembles  the  English  plan  rather  than  the 
American,  and  since  the  two  schools  are  continuous  the 
great  objection  to  the  American  plan — that  it  begins  second- 
ary education  too  late — is  completely  overcome.  A  full 
account  of  the  curriculum  of  the  elementary  school,  reprinted 
from  Teachers'  College  Record,  is  published  by  the  univer- 


92     Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

sity,  1908.  It  is  one  of  the  most  valuable  books  on  methods 
of  teaching  young  children  yet  in  existence  ;  it  should  be 
in  every  teacher's  library  at  school  or  in  training  college. 
The  actual  subjects  are  very  much  what  they  are  in  a  good 
English  school  for  children  from  five  to  thirteen,  but  there 
is  much  more  emphasis  on  handwork,  art,  and  history. 
The  time  and  attention  given  to  music  is  unusual  in 
America,  though  not  with  us.  One  was  able  to  compare 
carefully  the  work  of  children  of  the  same  age ;  the  reading 
in  the  earlier  stages  was  better  than  some  of  ours,  and  the 
degree  of  intelligence  shown  in  class  very  marked,  though 
how  far  this  was  due  to  the  social  class  of  the  children,  and 
to  the  brightness  of  America,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  The 
composition  at  thirteen  years  of  age  was  not  as  good  as 
with  us,  in  spite  of  the  general  excellence  of  the  school  and 
the  very  careful  attention  given  to  English.  This  seems 
to  point  to  a  very  real  handicap  for  American  teachers ; 
conditions  in  some  way  are  against  them ;  foreign  immi- 
gration and  the  absence  of  the  habit  of  reading  good  litera- 
ture in  the  families,  are,  we  understand,  obvious  difficulties. 
It  is  hard  to  compare  the  arithmetic,  since  the  complication 
of  our  money  needs  so  much  time,  but  they  do  more  diffi- 
cult problems  at  thirteen,  though  the  work  is  nothing  like 
.so  neat,  nor  the  style  as  good  as  we  should  expect.  The 
intelligence  and  interest  shown  in  history,  geography  and 
literature  lessons  is,  however,  what  one  gets  in  England 
only  occasionally ;  possibly  the  presence  of  boys  has  a  good 
deal  to  do  with  the  greater  brightness  and  intelligence  of 
class-work.  A  foreign  language,  German  or  French,  is 
begun  in  the  seventh  grade,  that  is  at  twelve  to  thirteen, 
and  is  continued  in  the  high  school.  The  other  language, 
French,  German,  or  Greek,  may  be  begun  in  the  third  year 
of  the  high  school,  so  that  the  pupil  will  have  by  the  end 
six  years  of  one  language  and  three  years  of  the  other. 
Latin  is  begun  as  an  elective  study  in  the  first  year  of  the 


Private  Schools  93 

high  school  and  is  continued  throughout  five  periods  a 
week.  Languages  are  elective  so  far  as  the  school  is  con- 
cerned, but  the  needs  of  the  college  make  them  compulsory 
for  most  of  the  students. 

The  arrangement  of  required  studies  during  the  five 
years  in  the  high  school  programme  is  exceedingly  inter- 
esting. English  and  physical  training  are  compulsory 
throughout,  in  the  first  year  mathematics  and  physiology, 
in  the  second  year  history  being  required.  It  is  important 
to  notice  that  pressure  is  saved  by  dropping  out  science 
completely  in  the  second  year  and  history  in  the  first 
year;  in  the  third,  fourth  and  fifth  years  all  subjects 
except  English  and  physical  training  are  elective.  Girls 
can  take  domestic  science  (cookery,  etc.),  and  domestic 
art  (needlework,  etc.),  and  many  do,  though  not  as  a  rule 
those  girls  who  are  preparing  for  college.  We  subjoin  in 
the  Appendix  the  details  of  the  curriculum  taken  from  the 
current  prospectus,  but  since  all  the  ability  of  the  professors 
of  Teachers'  College  is  focussed  on  improving  the  plans  for 
the  Horace  Mann  School,  doubtless  every  year  sees  a 
change  and  an  improvement.  It  is  no  unimportant  char- 
acteristic of  these  schools  that  the  personality  of  the 
teacher  has  free  play  to  develop,  improve,  and  vary  the 
work  from  time  to  time ;  there  is  no  iron  hand  of  the  city 
superintendent  to  crush  initiative. 

Since  the  Horace  Mann  is  a  private  school  in  American 
eyes,  the  prohibition  of  religious  observances  does  not 
obtain,  and  the  day  is  begun  as  in  England  with  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  of  chapel  exercises  in  the  beautiful  auditorium 
or  assembly  hall.  The  one  adverse  criticism  which  occurs 
to  an  Englishwoman,  of  this  magnificent  and  inspiring 
institution,  is  that  there  is  no  one  woman  in  authority,  re- 
sponsible for  the  discipline  and  moral  training  of  the  girls. 
Naturally,  we  suppose,  in  a  co-educational  school,  the  head 
must  be  a  man,  at  all  events  when  at  least  half  are  youths 


94     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

up  to  eighteen  or  nineteen  years  of  age,  but  there  might 
surely  be,  as  in  an  English  co-educational  school,  a  woman 
vice-principal  who  would  do  for  the  girls  what  the  head- 
mistress does  in  a  separate  girls'  school.  There  must  be 
in  America  women  who  could  fill  such  a  post,  and  surely, 
independent  as  she  is,  the  American  girl  would  profit  by 
guidance  wisely  and  tactfully  given.  In  conclusion,  we  can 
only  say  that  it  is  well  worth  the  fortnight  on  the  ocean 
to  and  from  New  York  to  spend  a  week  in  the  Horace 
Mann  Schools  if  one  saw  nothing  else.  It  is  not  often 
given  to  teachers  in  England  to  see  education  carried  out 
under  such  happy  conditions. 

The  university  welcomes  and  welcomes  heartily  this  splendid 
addition  to  the  equipment  with  which  these  mighty  institutions 
are  pressing  forward  in  pursuit  of  a  common  educational  ideal. 
We  are  glad  to  have  here  on  Morningside  Heights  one  more 
impressive  monument  of  the  wisdom  and  generosity  of  those 
New  Yorkers  who  believe  in  education.  ...  It  is  not  an  idle 
boast,  nor  is  it  merely  to  call  attention  to  a  haphazard  coin- 
cidence, to  point  out  that  here  on  this  site,  for  the  first  time  in 
the  history  of  education,  a  child  may  enter  the  Kindergarten 
and  go  forward  under  the  influence  of  one  tendency  and  ideal, 
in  unbroken  course,  until  he  passes  out  into  the  world  with  the 
highest  honours  of  a  modern  university  (Nicholas  Murray 
Butler  at  the  dedication  of  the  building). 


CHAPTER  III. 

COLLEGES  AND  UNIVERSITIES. 

Howbeit  I  believed  not  the  words,  until  I  came  and  mine  eyes  had 
seen  it :  and  behold,  the  half  was  not  told  me. — QUEEN  OF  SHEBA. 

To  give  a  complete  account  of  these  institutions  in  the 
United  States  would  need  a  book,  not  a  chapter;  nor, 
indeed,  has  the  present  writer  the  experience  and  the 
knowledge  that  qualify  for  such  a  task.  But  no  student  of 
secondary  education  can  help  studying  also  the  university 
stage  to  which  his  work  leads,  and  from  which  it  derives, 
and  the  relations  of  schools  and  colleges  are  vital  in 
secondary  education  everywhere.  Not  less  is  this  true  of 
America,  where  the  college  is  of  enormous  importance. 

All  the  professions  called  learned  or  scientific  are  fed  by  these 
institutions ;  the  whole  school  system  depends  upon  them  and 
could  not  be  maintained  in  efficiency  without  them ;  they  gather 
in  and  preserve  the  intellectual  capital  of  the  race,  and  are  the 
storehouses  of  the  acquired  knowledge  on  which  invention  and 
progress  depend ;  they  enlarge  the  boundaries  of  knowledge ; 
they  maintain  the  standards  of  honour,  public  duty  and  public 
spirit,  and  diffuse  the  refinement,  culture  and  spirituality  without 
which  added  wealth  would  only  be  added  grossness  and  corrup- 
tion (Charles  W.  Eliot,  American  Contributions  to  Civilisation, 
p.  304,  London,  1897). 

English  people  often  do  not  realise  this  importance ; 
they  are  confused  by  the  multiplicity  and  variety  of  degree- 
giving  institutions  in  America — over  450  in  number,1  many 

1  The  Carnegie  Foundation  says  there  are  950  in  English-speaking  America. 

95 


96     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

obscure,  insignificant  and  poor,  some  even  fraudulent — and, 
unless  they  have  some  knowledge  of  what  the  standards  of 
work  of  the  real  American  universities  are,  they  are  apt 
to  despise  them  all.  This  is  a  most  unfortunate  and  unjust 
way  of  thinking,  and  must  seem  ridiculous  in  its  ineptitude 
to  those  who  have  visited  the  Cambridge  of  the  New 
World,  or  have  tried  to  obtain  the  degree  of  the  Massa- 
chusetts Institute  of  Technology,  or  sought  research  fellow- 
ships at  Bryn  Mawr  after  going  through  Girton  or 
Somerville. 

The  fact  is  that  the  thirty-five  or  so  true  American 
colleges  and  universities  are  on  the  same  plane  as  those 
of  the  Old  World.  Oxford,  Paris,  and  Harvard  ;  Berlin, 
London,  and  Columbia ;  Cambridge,  Gottingen,  Yale ; 
Strasburg,  Manchester,  Chicago ;  Heidelberg  and  Prince- 
ton ;  Aberdeen  and  Wisconsin — they  are  sisters,  varying 
in  excellences  and  beauty,  but  sisters  all. 

The  anomalous  condition  of  things  in  the  United  States 
has  arisen,  like  other  difficulties  there,  from  the  weakness 
of  the  central  government.  It  has  not  the  authority  to 
give  charters,  as  the  sovereign  has  with  us.  Each  petty 
State  could  grant  the  privilege,  and  in  early  days,  among 
the  struggles  and  in  the  simplicity  of  pioneer  times,  far 
too  many  small  and  weak  institutions  received  charters. 
This  was  due  in  part  to  good  motives — the  desire  to  en- 
courage higher  education,  the  belief  in  colleges — as  well  as 
to  the  excessive  strength  of  local  feeling  and  the  zeal,  not 
always  according  to  knowledge,  of  ecclesiastical  denomina- 
tions, each  anxious  to  have  its  own  little  seminary  for  the 
right  training  of  the  flower  of  its  youth.  The  State  of 
Ohio  is  especially  remarkable  for  a  multitude  of  small 
degree-giving  institutions.  After  all,  we  must  remember 
that  Harvard  (1636),  Yale  (1701)  and  Princeton  (1746)  all 
began  with  a  day  of  small  things,  and  that  Oberlin  and 
Mount  Holyoke,  which  did  so  much  for  women  in  the 


Colleges  and  Universities  97 

early  nineteenth  century,  were  even  then  not  among  the 
great  colleges. 

Americans  have  sought  with  but  little  success  to  dis- 
criminate between  the  different  grades,  and  to  put  in  their 
right  place  the  so-called  universities  which  are  in  fact 
secondary  schools,  sometimes  not  even  good  secondary 
schools.  The  Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae,  de- 
scribed in  Chapter  IX.,  has  done  something  in  this  direc- 
tion for  women's  colleges,  separate  and  co-educational. 
Quite  lately,  however,  the  new  Carnegie  Foundation  has 
at  last  found  a  method,  which  is  sketched  at  the  end  of 
this  chapter.  The  Foundation  was  established  to  give 
pensions  to  professors,  but  men  say  that  this  work  of  dis- 
crimination will  be  even  more  valuable  to  higher  education. 

To  consider  now  only  the  true  types :  we  perceive  at 
once  the  difference  between  those  modelled  on  England, 
the  Colonial  Colleges  of  the  East,  founded  before  the 
Revolution  and  still  independent  of  Government,  and  the 
State  Universities  of  the  West,  due  perhaps  to  French, 
but  certainly  to  republican  and  democratic,  influences, 
established  and  financed  by  the  States.  A  third  type 
must  perhaps  be  added,  the  separate  women's  colleges, 
modern  comparatively,  Vassar  1865,  Smith  and  Wellesley 
1875,  Bryn  Mawr  1885.  These  are  not  governmental, 
but  are  endowed  private  institutions.  Barnard  (1889)  and 
Radcliffe  (1879)  are  annexes  of  Columbia  and  Harvard. 
The  foundation  of  independent  colleges  and  universities 
has  continued  since  the  Revolution  to  quite  modern  days, 
Johns  Hopkins  at  Baltimore  and  the  University  of  Chicago 
being  the  most  striking  modern  instances. 

We  may  in  this  connection  again  quote  Dr.  N.  M. 
Butler,  Educational  Review  : — 

In  other  words,  the  so-called  public  education  of  the  United 
States,  that  which  is  tax-supported  and  under  the  direct  control 

7 


98     Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

of  a  governmental  agency,  is  not  the  entire  national  educational 
system.  To  get  at  what  the  people  of  the  United  States  are 
doing  for  education  and  to  measure  the  full  length  and  breadth 
of  the  nation's  educational  system,  we  must  add  to  public  or 
tax-supported  education  all  activities  of  similar  kind  that  are 
carried  on  by  private  corporations,  by  voluntary  associations, 
and  by  individuals.  The  nation  is  represented  partly  by  each 
of  these  undertakings,  wholly  by  no  one  of  them.  The  terms 
national  and  governmental  are  happily  not  convertible  in  the 
United  States,  whether  it  be  of  universities,  of  morals,  or  of 
efficiency  that  we  are  speaking. 

In  the  United  States  there  are  three  different  types  of  educa- 
tional institution,  all  resting  upon  the  power  of  the  State.  One 
of  the  three  depends  wholly  and  one  partly  upon  the  Govern- 
ment. The  third  type  is  without  any  governmental  relationship 
whatever.  The  three  types  are  these  : — 

1.  Those  institutions  which  the  Government  establishes  and 
maintains,  such  as  the  public  schools,  the  public  libraries,  and 
the  State  universities. 

2.  Those  institutions  which  the  Government  authorises,  such 
as  school,  college  and  university  corporations,  private  or  semi- 
public  in  character,  which  gain  their  powers  and  privileges  by  a 
charter  granted  by  the  proper   governmental  authority,  and 
which  are  often  given  aid  by  the  Government  in  the  form  of 
partial  or  entire  exemption  from  taxation. 

3.  Those  institutions  which  the  State  permits,  because  it  has 
conferred  on  the  Government  no  power  to  forbid  or  to  restrict 
them,    such  as   private-venture    (unincorporated)    educational 
undertakings  of  various  kinds. 

Our  American  educational  system  is  made  up  of  all  these, 
and  whether  a  given  school,  college  or  university  is  national 
or  not  does  not  in  the  least  depend  upon  the  fact  that  it  is  or 
is  not  governmental. 

We  have  elsewhere  alluded  to  the  characteristic  general 
course  of  liberal  studies  in  American  colleges,  leading  to 


Colleges  and  Universities  99 

the  A.B.  degree  and  to  the  struggle  and  conflict  as  to 
optional  or  elective,  against  compulsory  or  prescribed,  sub- 
jects, which  has  been  going  on  for  more  than  forty  years ; 
Harvard  leading  the  radical  party,  and  Yale  standing  for 
the  older  and  sterner  doctrine  of  a  prescribed  course  of 
study. 

This  was  the  original  plan,  the  classics  and  mathematics 
being  the  staple,  and  English,  modern  languages,  history 
and  science  being  added  in  varying  proportions  in  differ- 
ent colleges  later.  When  the  prescribed  course  still  obtains 
in  its  strict  form  it  is  limited  to  the  first  and  second  year, 
and  the  work  for  the  third  and  fourth  is  largely  optional 
or  elective,  though  not  as  a  rule  entirely  so ;  Vassar 
among  women's  colleges  is  a  type  of  this  group,  and  Prince- 
ton among  men's. 

The  elective  system  means  freedom  of  choice  among 
subjects ;  Harvard  has  only  one  compulsory  study,  Eng- 
lish. No  other  great  university  allows  such  complete 
freedom.  However,  Harvard  may  boast  that  her  example 
has  influenced  all  the  other  colleges  and  made  them  allow 
much  more  freedom. 

A  third  system  has  been  evolved  at  Johns  Hopkins, 
Baltimore,  and  at  Bryn  Mawr:  the  group  system.  Its 
advocates  think  it  is  the  only  satisfactory  solution,  combin- 
ing scholarly  thoroughness  and  breadth  with  adaptation 
to  special  ability  and  tastes.  It  is  very  like  the  English 
system  for  honours  courses  at  some  of  our  new  universities, 
where  a  student  can  take  honours  in  one  subject,  but 
must  group  with  it,  at  least  as  far  as  the  Intermediate 
standard,  allied  subjects,  e.g.,  Latin  and  modern  languages 
for  history  honours,  mathematics  and  physics  for  chemistry 
honours,  chemistry  and  physics  for  botany  and  zoology 
honours  and  the  like.  It  means  a  great  deal  of  work. 

The  Bryn  Mawr  calendar  tabulates  the  studies  required 
for  a  degree  as  follows  : — 

7* 


ioo      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


REQUIRED  COURSES  (FIVE  HOURS  A  WEEK  FOR  ONE  YEAR  EACH). 

i  and  2.  3. 

English.         Philosophy. 
[Two  Courses.] 


4' 

5- 

6. 

Science, 

Science, 

Matriculation 

Physics, 

or 

French, 

or 

History, 

or 

Chemistry, 

or 

Matriculation 

or 

Economics 

German, 

Geology, 

and 

or 

or 

Politics, 

Matriculation 

Biology. 

or 

Greek  (or 

Law, 

Minor  Latin). 

or 

Mathematics. 

Two  MAJOR  COURSES  (FIVE  HOURS  A  WEEK  FOR  Two  YEARS  EACH). 
Constituting  any  one  of  the  following  thirty-nine  groups  : — 


I.—  XX. 

XXI.                      XXII. 

XXIII. 

Any  Language 
with 

History                   History 
with                         with 

Economics  and 
Politics 

any  Language 
(Twenty  Groups). 

Economics  and              Law. 
Politics. 

with 
Law. 

XXIV. 

XXV.                     XXVI. 

XXVII. 

Economics  and 
Politics 

Philosophy            Philosophy 
with                         with 

Philosophy 
with 

with 
Philosophy. 

Greek.                  English. 

Mathematics. 

XXVIII. 

XXIX.                     XXX. 

XXXI. 

Philosophy 
with 

Mathematics          Mathematics 
with                         with 

Mathematics 
with 

Physics. 

Greek.                     Latin. 

Physics. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII.                     XXXIV.-XXXIX. 

Mathematics 
with 

Mathematics 
with 

Any  Science 
with 

Chemistry. 

Geology. 

any  Science 
(Six  Groups). 

Ten  hours  a  week  for  one  year  in  any  subject,  or  subjects,  the 
student  may  elect. 

No  limit  of  time  is  prescribed  for  this  very  severe  course 
of  study ;  a  candidate  may  take  more  than  four  years  if 
necessary,  and  a  very  brilliant  student  by  doing  particularly 
well  in  matriculation  may  be  excused  some  work  in  college. 


Colleges  and  Universities  101 

Fifteen  hours  of  lectures  is,  however,  taken  as  a  normal 
amount.  It  may  be  well  to  quote  also  from  the  calendar 
how  this  system  works  for  three  typical  subjects. 

Classics.  As  Required  Studies  [Matriculation  French,  or 
Matriculation  German,  or  Matriculation  Greek],  English,  Philo- 
sophy, Science  (Physics,  or  Chemistry,  or  Geology,  or  Biology), 
another  Science  (or  Mediaeval,  or  Oriental  History,  or  Minor 
Economics  and  Politics,  or  Minor  Law,  or  Minor  Mathematics). 
As  a  Group,  Greek  and  Latin.  As  Free  Electives,  Post-major 
Greek  and  Latin,  or  Classical  Art  and  Archaeology,  ten  hours  a 
week  for  one  year. 

Mathematics  (with  Physics).  As  Required  Studies  [Matricu- 
lation French,  or  Matriculation  German,  or  Matriculation  Greek, 
or  Minor  Latin],  English,  Philosophy,  Chemistry,  another 
Science  (Geology,  or  Biology),  or  Post-major  Mathematics.  As 
a  Group,  Mathematics  and  Physics.  As  Free  Electives,  Trigo- 
nometry, Post-major  Mathematics,  and  Post-major  Physics,  ten 
hours  a  week  for  one  year. 

History.  As  Required  Studies  [Matriculation  French  or  Matri- 
culation German,  or  Matriculation  Greek,  or  Minor  Latin], 
English,  Philosophy,  any  Science,  another  Science  (or  Oriental 
History,  or  Post-major  History,  or  Economics  and  Politics,  or 
Law,  or  Mathematics).  As  a  Group,  History  and  Economics  and 
Politics,  or  History  and  Law.  As  Free  Electives,  Post-major 
History  and  Economics  and  Politics,  ten  hours  a  week  for  one 
year. 

Some  conservative  authorities  do  not  give  the  A.B. 
degree  for  any  but  a  prescribed  course  of  study ;  a  degree 
in  Letters,  Philosophy,  or  a  B.Sc.  like  ours  is  given  for 
modern  courses,  without  Latin  and  the  old  culture  subjects. 
The  more  liberal  institutions  think  this  a  great  mistake. 
Such  degrees  are  felt  by  the  public  to  mean  an  inferior 
order  of  attainment,  and  if  the  college  thinks  these  modern 
courses  should  be  followed,  they  ought  to  have  the  same 


IO2       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

stamp  as  the  other  older  humanistic  course.  So  Columbia 
gives  the  A.B.  degree  for  all  literary  courses. 

The  small  college  has  no  analogy  in  England,  and  its 
value  needs  emphasising  to-day  when  the  great  centres  of 
learning  fill  the  public  eye.  In  many  of  the  less  famous, 
youths  have  received  the  first  impulse  to  a  life  of  scholar- 
ship and  professional  usefulness.  Personal  influence  of  the 
faculty  has  counted  for  much  in  them  ;  the  denominational 
connection  has  often  meant  a  tone  of  simple  religious 
earnestness,  and  the  social  life  of  a  resident  college  has 
brought  all  the  joys  of  youth  and  friendship.  Professor 
Wendell,  in  his  France  of  To-day, l  speaking  of  French 
students,  says  they  are — 

.  .  .  Without  that  happy  interval  between  the  drudgery  of  school 
and  the  strife  of  responsible  existence.  An  American  boy  who 
has  passed  three  to  four  years  at  college  will  find  himself  as  a 
human  being  the  better  for  life  in  consequence,  the  more  sym- 
pathetic, the  richer  in  human  quality,  which  is  really  why  our 
American  reverence  for  our  colleges  is  so  wholesome. 

The  four  years,  Freshman,  Sophomore,  Junior,  Senior, 
keep  apart,  and  the  man  goes  with  his  year  or  "  Class ". 
The  set  that  graduates  in  1908  will  be  called  the  Class  of 
1908,  and  will  keep  up  the  college  tie  by  meeting  once  a 
year  at  their  Alma  Mater  ;  they  will  hold  a  special  festival 
there  at  the  tenth  and  again  at  the  twenty-fifth  anniver- 
sary, when  the  Class  will  subscribe  and  present  the  college 
with  some  gift — often  a  building,  should  fortune  favour 
them  in  later  days. 

Girls,  too,  are  happy  at  college ;  indeed  after  a  generation 
it  has  become  fashionable  for  girls  to  go  to  college  and 
have  a  good  time.  One  of  the  senior  professors  at  Vassar, 
Miss  Abby  Leech,  speaking  in  Boston  last  November, 
said : — 

1  Archibald  Constable,  London,  1908. 


Colleges  and  Universities  103 

Recreation  is  coming  to  be  regarded  not  for  the  sake  of 
work,  but  unhappily  as  an  end  in  itself,  and  work  is  looked 
upon  as  something  to  be  endured  for  the  sake  of  the  college 
life.  Women's  colleges  have  now  to  reckon  with  the  influx  of 
large  numbers  of  girls,  attractive,  with  social  advantages  and 
plenty  of  money,  but  from  homes  where  .  .  .  delight  in  learning 
and  in  books  is  almost  inconceivable. 

But  there  is  still  the  very  serious  "  reading "  element, 
the  men  (and  the  girls)  who  work  their  way  through  col- 
lege, even  at  Harvard,  the  college  for  rich  men's  sons.  It 
is  still  true  what  President  Eliot  said  in  1869 : — 

No  good  student  need  ever  stay  away  from  Cambridge  or 
leave  college  simply  because  he  is  poor. 

The  university  commons  there  are  so  arranged  that  the 
necessaries  for  three  simple  meals  a  day  (without  eggs, 
fish  or  meat)  can  be  had  for  less  than  three  dollars  a  week, 
and  thus  the  poor  man  is  able  to  live  with  his  fellow- 
students  who  can  spend  easily  five  times  that  amount. 
One  of  the  recent  gifts  to  Harvard  is  a  magnificent  club- 
house, the  Union,  intended  to  help  the  students  who  could 
not  afford  to  join  expensive  and  exclusive  private  clubs. 

There  is  a  very  real  social  prestige  in  America  attached 
to  being  a  college  man — or  even  a  college  woman.  Fashion- 
able girls  will  toil  terribly  to  pass  the  very  hard  Matricu- 
lation Examination  at  Bryn  Mawr,  and  parents  will  make 
sacrifices  like  those  of  the  Scotch  peasantry  to  send  their 
children  to  college.  The  dull  boy  of  a  wealthy  family  has 
sometime  or  other  to  be  coached  up  for  entrance  at  Prince- 
ton or  elsewhere.  Americans  of  the  cultivated  class  are 
amazed  at  the  way  wealthy  Englishmen  with  boys  at 
Harrow  or  Rugby  never  think  of  sending  them  on  to  the 
'Varsity,  but  take  them  right  into  business  or  other  work. 
The  fact  is  explained  of  course  by  knowing  that  the  Public 


104      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

School  life  does  for  our  boys  something  of  what  College 
does  for  the  American  youth. 

It  appears  that  there  are  on  the  books  at  Harvard  560 
family  stocks  that,  generation  after  generation,  send  sons 
to  graduate.  These  families,  says  President  Eliot,  are  of 
the  real  aristocracy  of  America 

The  college  thus  fills  in  America  a  relatively  much 
larger  field  than  with  us.1  This  is  obvious  in  the  highly 
characteristic  American  advertisements  that  are  so  clever 
and  so  effective.  The  college  man's  tailoring  is  the  pattern, 
the  college  youth  is  the  type  of  manhood,  on  the  posters. 
Newspapers  are  full  of  university  intelligence;  not  the 
meagre  formal  announcements  of  scholarships  and  degrees 
and  appointments  we  have  in  ours,  but  regular  articles, 
like  our  London  Letter,  or  Paris  Day  by  Day.  Right  up 
the  scale  of  national  life  goes  this  interest  and  zeal,  till  we 
find  an  Ex-President,  Grover  Cleveland,  devoting  himself 
to  Princeton, 2  while  rumour  whispers  that  the  proper  destiny 
for  the  President  himself  when  he  leaves  public  affairs  is 
the  future  Presidency  of  another  great  university. 

All  this  public  confidence  and  zeal  is  embodied  in  the 
magnificent  buildings  and  grounds  of  American  univer- 
sities— by  far  the  most  splendid  and  inspiring  sights  the 
country  has  to  show.  One  would  need  the  prose  of  a 
Ruskin  and  the  poetry  of  a  Matthew  Arnold  to  do  justice 
to  Princeton  with  its  cedars,  its  ivy,  its  lawns  and  gates, 
its  superb  and  stately  halls  and  hostels,  its  gymnasium,  and 
its  sundial,  or  to  Wellesley  so  lovely  by  Lake  Waban  with 
its  forty  or  more  buildings  scattered  among  trees  of  the 
forest  primeval.  This  outer  beauty  and  wealth  is  but  a 
symbol  of  the  inner  spirit. 

1  "  A  new  and  higher  price  in  American  conditions  is  attaching  to  the 
cloister  .  .  .  the  place  to  perambulate,  the  place  to  think  apart  from  the 
crowd"  (The  American  Scene,  p.  57). 

*  Grover  Cleveland  died  at  Princeton,  June,  1908,  and  is  buried  there. 


Colleges  and  Universities  105 

The  greater  of  these  democratic  institutions  has  cost  the  life 
work  of  thousands  of  devoted  men.  ...  At  the  sacrifice  of  other 
aspirations,  and  under  heavy  discouragements  and  disappoint- 
ments, but  with  faith  and  hope,  these  teachers  and  trustees  have 
built  up  institutions  which,  however  imperfect,  have  cherished 
scientific  enthusiasm,  fostered  piety,  literature,  art  and  public 
duty,  and  steadily  kept  in  view  the  ethical  ideas  which  demo- 
cracy cherishes. 

Harvard  is  the  creation  of  thousands  of  persons,  living  and 
dead,  rich  and  poor,  learned  and  simple,  who  have  voluntarily 
given  it  their  time,  thought  or  money,  and  lavished  upon  it 
their  affection  (Charles  W.  Eliot,  American  Contributions  to 
Civilisation,  pp.  83-84). 

What,  then,  is  a  true  university,  and  what  is  its  function  ? 
Let  two  university  presidents  answer : — 

An  institution  where  students,  adequately  trained  by  previous 
study  of  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences,  are  led  into  special  fields 
of  learning  and  research  by  teachers  of  high  excellence  and 
originality ;  and  where,  by  the  agencies  of  museums,  laboratories 
and  publications,  knowledge  is  conserved,  advanced  and  dis- 
seminated (N.  M.  Butler). 

Universities  exist  to  advance  science,  to  keep  alive  philosophy 
and  poetry,  and  to  draw  out  and  cultivate  the  higher  power  of 
the  human  mind  (Charles  W.  Eliot). 

But  all  this  is  equally  true  here  of  our  universities. 
Why,  then,  is  there  for  them  this  intense  belief,  this  zeal,  this 
honour,  this  lavishing  of  wealth,  this  devotion  of  personal 
thought  and  effort  by  all  classes  in  America?  A  wise 
man  has  answered :  "  The  soul  of  America  is  in  her  uni- 
versities ".  That  is  the  reason  ;  if  they  were  taken  away, 
she  would  die  and  become  corrupt.  It  is  not  so  here ;  if 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  and  their  younger  sisters  were 
torn  out  of  England,  she  would  suffer,  but  she  would  live ; 


io6       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

the  Churches,  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  the  Services,  the 
public  schools,  the  great  professional  institutes,  the  families 
of  her  gentlefolk,  the  trades  unions  and  the  friendly 
societies,  even  perhaps  the  press  (though  not  what  it  was), 
are  all  organs  of  her  deeper  mind  in  one  way  or  another, 
and  would  keep  her  soul  alive ;  in  America  without  the 
universities  all  that  is  spiritual  would  perish,  so  strong  is 
the  power  of  material  things  in  that  new  and  wonderful 
world,  so  weak  the  other  powers  that  make  for  righteous- 
ness. 

To-day,  in  the  opening  century,  the  university  proudly  asserts 
itself  in  every  civilised  land,  not  least  in  our  own,  as  the  bearer 
of  a  tradition  and  the  servant  of  an  ideal  without  which  life 
would  be  barren,  and  the  two  remaining  principles  (the  State 
and  religion)  which  underlie  civilisation  robbed  of  half  their 
power.  To  destroy  the  university  would  be  to  turn  back  the 
hands  upon  the  dial  of  history  for  centuries ;  to  cripple  it  is  to 
put  shackles  upon  every  forward  movement  that  we  prize — 
research,  industry,  commerce,  the  liberal  and  practical  arts  and 
sciences.  To  support  and  enhance  it  is  to  set  free  new  and 
vitalising  energy  in  every  field  of  human  endeavour.  Scholar- 
ship has  shown  the  world  that  knowledge  is  convertible  into 
comfort,  prosperity  and  success,  as  well  as  into  new  and  higher 
types  of  social  order  and  of  spirituality.  "  Take  fast  hold  of 
instruction,"  said  the  Wise  Man ;  "  let  her  not  go,  keep  her ; 
for  she  is  thy  life"  (N.  M.  Butler,  Scholarship  and  Service, 
June,  1902). 

.  .  .  The  general  kind  of  presence  for  which  the  noisy  air  over 
the  land  feels  insensibly  an  inward  ache — the  presence  that 
corresponds  there,  no  matter  how  loosely,  to  that  of  the  housing 
and  harbouring  European  Church  in  the  ages  of  great  disorder. 
The  universities  and  the  greater  libraries  .  .  .  repeat  in  their 
manner  to  the  imagination,  East  and  West,  the  note  of  the  old 
thick- walled  convents  and  quiet  cloisters ;  they  are  large  and 
charitable,  they  are  stately,  often  proud  and  often  rich,  and 


Colleges  and  Universities  107 

they  have  the  incalculable  value  that  they  present  the  only 
intermission  to  inordinate  rapacious  traffic  that  the  scene  offers 
to  view.  With  this  suggestion  of  sacred  ground  .  .  .  they 
create  and  consecrate  all  their  relations  (Henry  James,  The 
American  Scene,  p.  380). 

ACCREDITING  AND  ENTRANCE  TO  COLLEGE. 

In  an  ideal  system  of  education  the  secondary  school 
stands  in  the  closest  possible  relation  to  the  university, 
which  is,  indeed,  the  source  of  its  inspiration.  This  influence 
may  be  exercised  in  various  ways,  direct  and  indirect ; 
the  teachers  who  make  the  school  are  themselves  made  at 
the  university,  and  the  standards  and  requirements  of  the 
school  are  profoundly  affected  by  the  requirements  of  the 
university  for  entrance,  even  if  the  majority  of  the  pupils 
do  not  necessarily  proceed  thither.  Indeed  one  of  the  most 
critical  points  in  any  system  of  education  is  the  method  of 
admission  from  school  to  college,  and  the  relation  of  the 
two  institutions  turns  more  largely  on  this  hinge  than  on 
any  other. 

The  obvious  and  original  method  for  admission,  which 
still  obtains  in  England,  is  for  the  college  to  examine  the 
students  when  they  come  up,  and  see  whether  their  earlier 
education  has  prepared  them  to  profit  by  the  advantages 
of  the  higher  institution.  This  method  still  obtains  in 
Eastern  colleges  in  America,  especially  in  the  older  or  more 
august,  Harvard,  Yale,  Princeton,  Columbia,  as  well  as  in 
some  newer  colleges  of  special  dignity,  such  as  Bryn  Mawr 
(for  women),  and  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology. 
Originally  each  college  conducted  its  own  examinations, 
and  this  plan  is  still  continued,  but  during  the  last  ten 
years  a  system  of  unification  and  co-ordination  has  arisen. 
The  varying  requirements  for  entrance  of  different  colleges 
have  laid  a  terrible  burden  on  the  schools,  especially  when 


io8       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

a  large  number  of  different  set  books  had  to  be  read  by 
candidates.  This  evil  still  persists,  but  is  much  less  than 
it  was,  through  the  efforts  that  have  been  made  for  co- 
operation and  co-ordination.  Chief  of  these  efforts  has 
been  the  establishment  of  the  College  Entrance  Examina- 
tion Board,  which  was  organised  in  1900,  at  a  meeting  held 
at  Columbia  University,  New  York.  Its  work  has  become 
more  and  more  important  and  its  system  has  been  gradually 
perfected  until  its  examinations  are  now  recognised  for 
entrance  by  all  the  great  Eastern  colleges  including 
Harvard  ;  in  1907  over  three  thousand  candidates  were 
examined.  Its  system  presents  features  of  peculiar  merit 
worthy  of  careful  study  in  England :  a  detailed  account 
will  be  found  below.  Its  most  essential  features  are  that 
it  is  a  voluntary  organisation  of  college  representatives 
and  teachers,  and  that  in  all  its  work  acting  teachers  are 
closely  associated. 

The  examination  system  for  admission  to  college,  how- 
ever carefully  conducted,  involves,  in  America,  the  same 
•evils  as  those  with  which  we  are  so  familiar  here — over- 
pressure amongst  students,  restraint  in  using  the  best 
methods  among  teachers,  distortion  of  curriculum,  and  in 
general  an  emphasis  on  facts  and  knowledge  rather  than 
on  thought  and  power.  The  standard  for  admission  into 
the  best  Eastern  colleges  is,  so  far  as  we  can  judge,  at  least 
as  high  as  the  ordinary  matriculation  standard  in  England, 
and  in  some  cases  much  higher  than  the  Cambridge 
"Little  Go,"  or  the  Oxford  Responsions.  The  pressure 
on  schools  preparing  for  Eastern  colleges  in  America  is 
thus  even  worse  than  it  is  here.  The  majority  of  students 
proceeding  to  colleges  like  Harvard  attend  private  schools, 
where  they  receive  elaborate  and  careful  preparation  for 
entrance,  such  institutions  being  often  called  preparatory  or 
fitting  schools. 

On    the  other   hand,  the   examination    system    does, 


Colleges  and  Universities  109 

it  is  said,  keep  up  the  standard,  and  is  consequently 
strongly  supported  by  the  authorities  of  the  Eastern 
colleges.  It  is  also  highly  stimulating,  probably  much  too 
stimulating,  to  the  pupils  in  the  schools ;  one  notices,  for 
instance,  coming  from  the  Western  schools,  an  entirely 
different  atmosphere  in  the  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
High  Schools  for  Girls,  where  large  numbers  are  prepar- 
ing for  these  or  equivalent  examinations.  One  could  only 
describe  this  atmosphere  as  one  of  greater  intensity,  of 
higher  voltage — much  more  like  the  speed  and  intensity 
of  an  English  school,  which  to-day  is  far  from  being  a  place 
of  leisure. 

American  inventiveness  exercises  itself  not  only  in  the 
sphere  of  mechanics ;  it  has  elaborated  devices  in  educa- 
tion to  meet  difficulties  and  deficiencies,  as  it  has  elaborated 
labour-saving  machinery  to  overcome  the  disadvantage  of 
a  scarcity  of  labour.  One  of  the  best  of  these  inventions 
is  the  Western  system  of  admission  to  college  which  is 
termed  "  Accrediting ".  It  sets  aside  the  examination 
system  with  its  evils,  and  while,  like  the  sewing-machine 
and  the  typewriter,  it  brings  in  new  difficulties  of  its  own, 
it  has  simplified  toil,  relieved  strain,  and  increased  output. 

Essentially  the  accrediting  system  is  the  sending  up  of 
pupils  from  certain  inspected  high  schools  to  enter  the 
university  without  any  entrance  examination.  The  school 
is  made  responsible,  and  all  schools  which  are  considered 
worthy  of  such  responsibility  are  after  inspection  granted 
the  privilege  of  accrediting  pupils. 

The  theory  of  the  accredited  school  stated  as  briefly  as 
possible  is  this  :  The  secondary  school  proves  to  the  satis- 
faction of  the  university  or  college  that  it  is  able  to  give  its 
pupils  an  adequate  preparation  for  the  advantageous  pursuit  of 
collegiate  work ;  the  judgment  of  the  school  as  to  the  com- 
petence of  the  pupil  to  do  so  is  accepted  as  final ;  the  pupil  is 


no      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

in  consequence  not  subjected  to  a  test  by  the  college  authori- 
ties (E.  H.  Mensel,  The  School  Review,  May,  1904). 

The  system  is  essentially  Western,  and  was  invented  to 
make  a  clear,  smooth  road  to  the  State  university  from 
the  public  high  school.  Both  these  institutions  are  parts 
of  one  public  system  of  organisation.  It  was  felt  that 
there  ought  to  be  no  block  or  barrier  to  prevent  pupils 
passing  from  the  one  to  the  other;  if  the  high  schools 
were  doing  their  work  properly,  good  students  who  had 
passed  through  the  four  years'  course  satisfactorily  should 
be  able  to  proceed  to  college.  It  was  also  felt  that  the  old- 
fashioned  entrance  examination  was  not  really  satisfactory : 
students  were  crammed,  not  taught,  immature  and  un- 
suitable pupils  managed  to  creep  through  the  barrier,  and 
good  boys  and  girls  who  were  well  fitted  for  higher  work 
were  unable  to  pass.  The  evils  of  the  examination  system 
as  injuring  really  good  teaching  were  also  arguments  for 
the  evolution  of  another  method.  Historically  the  scheme 
began  in  the  University  of  Michigan  in  1871 ;  we  may 
quote  from  Professor  Whitney : — 

It  sprang  from  two  apparently  antagonistic  causes  :  first,  from 
an  earnest  desire  on  the  part  of  the  president  and  members  of 
the  faculty  to  co-operate  with  superintendents  and  principals  of 
high  schools,  with  a  view  to  consolidating,  strengthening  and 
elevating  the  entire  system  of  the  State ;  and  secondly,  from 
urgent  solicitations  of  superintendents  and  principals  of  the 
leading  high  schools  of  the  State  for  closer  articulation  with  the 
university  as  an  organic  part  of  the  educational  system,  to  the 
end  that  each  institution  might  react  upon  and  stimulate  the 
other  for  the  benefit  of  each  and  the  good  of  the  whole. 

Although  at  first  severely  criticised  as  an  innovation,  the 
system  was  so  successful  that  it  spread  throughout  the 
West,  and  is  now  universal  from  the  Alleghanies  to  Cali- 


Colleges  and  Universities  1 1 1 

fornia.  All  the  State  universities  have  adopted  it,  though 
the  methods  of  working  the  system  vary  slightly.  The 
new  University  of  Chicago,  under  the  influence  of  the  late 
President  Harper,  adopted  it  under  a  somewhat  different 
form,  the  schools  being  termed  co-operating  schools,  and 
the  relations  between  them  and  the  university  being 
made  close  by  the  establishment  of  periodic  conferences 
and  meetings.  Certain  of  the  smaller  Eastern  colleges 
and  the  colleges  for  women  in  New  England  have  elabor- 
ated a  similar  system  of  entrance  on  certificate,  which  will 
be  described  later. 

The  accrediting  system  includes  four  processes  :  the  first 
is  the  inspection  of  the  school  desiring  the  privilege ;  this 
work  was  done  originally  in  a  somewhat  informal  way 
by  members  of  the  university  staff.  With  the  increase  of 
numbers  of  schools  applying,  it  has  become  impossible, 
with  the  professors  alone,  to  inspect,  and  there  is  being 
developed  slowly  an  organisation  of  special  officers  for 
the  inspection,  appointed  and  paid  either  by  the  university 
or  the  State.  It  must  be  remembered  that  there  is  no 
Board  of  Education  in  America,  and  no  corps  of  inspectors 
as  with  us.  When  a  school  has  been  inspected,  and  its 
returns  of  curriculum,  text-books,  staff,  etc.,  considered  by 
the  university  committee  dealing  with  the  subject,  the 
school  is  accredited  for  a  specified  period,  generally  three 
years.  This  is  the  second  step.  The  third  concerns  the 
particular  pupil,  who,  instead  of  passing  the  Matriculation 
Examination  as  in  England,  sends  to  the  university  a  re- 
port of  his  course  of  study,  showing  the  school  record  of 
work,  the  percentages  obtained  year  by  year,  the  books 
read,  etc.;  this  is  signed  by  the  headmaster,  and  sometimes 
by  the  senior  teachers  in  each  subject.  On  this  report  the 
pupil,  after  paying  the  matriculation  fee,  is  admitted  to 
the  college.  The  fourth  feature  is  as  essential  as  any  of  the 
others  though  it  does  not  appear  in  every  case.  It  is  the 


ii2       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

judgment  of  the  college  during  the  first  year  on  the  work 
of  the  students  thus  admitted.  A  report  of  this  judgment 
is  often  sent  to  the  school,  and  if  there  is  conspicuous  weak- 
ness in  any  one  subject  among  the  pupils  of  a  school,  the 
headmaster  is  warned,  and  unless  improvement  takes  place 
the  school  may  lose  its  privilege  of  accrediting.  Freshmen 
are  also  sent  down  during  the  first  half  of  the  year  if  they 
are  found  to  be  insufficiently  prepared.  In  the  University 
of  Wisconsin  10  to  15  per  cent,  are  sent  down  between 
November  and  Christmas  on  the  half-term  Thanksgiving 
Examination  of  the  University.  Most  of  these  appear  to 
return  to  school  for  another  year  to  study,  but  undoubtedly 
a  certain  number  never  come  back. 

It  is  the  universal  testimony  of  all  who  have  tried  this 
system  that  it  works  well,  and  there  is  no  desire  whatever 
to  abandon  it  and  go  back  to  the  old  examination  bond- 
age. The  criticism  that  would  occur  at  once  to  an  English 
teacher,  that  standards  of  scholarship  are  lowered,  is  de- 
finitely denied  ;  certain  Michigan  statistics  prepared  after 
ten  years  of  the  system  are  quoted  in  this  connection.  The 
records  of  1,000  students  were  carefully  tabulated,  and  it 
was  found  that  the  percentage  of  scholarship  for  those 
admitted  on  certificate  was  88'p,  of  those  on  examination 
87,  a  slight  balance  in  favour  of  the  new  system.  Head- 
masters are  found  to  declare  :  "  I  have  in  every  case  of  two 
boys  working  side  by  side  been  able  to  secure  better  work 
from  the  one  who  expected  to  be  admitted  by  certificate  ". 
The  colleges  state  that  they  are  better  satisfied  with  pupils 
who  have  gone  through  e.g.  four  years  of  Latin  in  a  good 
school  than  with  those  who  have  managed  to  cram  up  in  a 
hurry  enough  Latin  to  pass  an  entrance  examination.  It  is 
admitted,  of  course,  that  a  certain  number  of  unsuitable 
candidates  are  admitted  on  certificate,  but  defenders  of  the 
system  state  that  the  examination  method  is  no  better. 

The  system  has,  however,  two  weaknesses  in  practice, 


Colleges  and  Universities  113 

which  are  freely  acknowledged  in  conversation  by  those 
who  work  it  and  believe  in  it.  They  are :  (i)  The  incom- 
pleteness of  the  inspection.  (2)  The  lack  of  sufficient  inde- 
pendence on  the  part  of  headmasters  of  schools,  who  find 
it  difficult  to  resist  local  pressure  to  certify  a  particular 
candidate  who  is  not  really  ready  for  college.  It  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  neither  of  these  weaknesses  would  at 
present  obtain  in  England  if  a  system  of  accrediting  were 
adopted  here.  We  have  a  complete  and  careful  system  of 
inspection,  and  it  would  be  quite  easy  for  the  universities 
to  establish  bodies  of  inspectors,  men  and  women,  if  the 
sums  now  spent  on  examinations  were  diverted  to  such  a 
purpose.  The  headmasters  and  headmistresses  in  Eng- 
land are  by  tradition  accustomed  to  take  responsibility ; 
they  have  a  more  independent  position,  are  not  as  yet  so 
dependent  on  local  elective  committees  as  are  the  prin- 
cipals of  American  High  Schools.  Professional  feeling  is 
so  strong  that  they  would  probably  not  hesitate  to  refuse 
to  certify  unsuitable  candidates  for  college,  and  public 
opinion  would  support  them  in  any  agitation  which  might 
result.  It  is  probably  because  the  heads  of  schools  are 
not  independent  enough  in  America  that  the  university 
has  to  send  down  so  many  freshmen  who  are  found  to  be 
badly  prepared  in  the  first  year. 

The  difficulty  of  incomplete  inspection  is  generally  ad- 
mitted, and  is  emphasised  by  Eastern  authorities  like 
President  Eliot  of  Harvard,  who  thinks  that  college  pro- 
fessors cannot  properly  inspect  any  secondary  schools  with- 
out neglecting  their  own  work,  and  that  inspection  needs 
skilled  men  giving  their  whole  time  to  the  business.  The 
magnitude  of  distances  in  the  West  also  adds  to  the  diffi- 
culty of  inspection  by  university  teachers.  In  Minnesota 
the  State  High  School  Board  does  the  inspection  through 
special  officials,  in  Michigan  the  university  has  appointed 
a  special  committee.  The  University  of  Wisconsin  has 

8 


114      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

some  officers  entirely  devoted  to  the  work,  but  some  of  the 
members  of  the  faculties  also  take  part.  They  consider 
there  that  the  value  of  inspection  in  stimulus  to  the  school, 
and  increased  knowledge  to  the  professor,  of  the  local 
conditions  and  of  the  needs  of  the  schools,  is  well  worth 
the  comparatively  slight  disturbance  in  the  professors' 
ordinary  work. 

The  writer  endeavoured  to  obtain  personal  opinions 
during  her  visit  to  the  University  of  Wisconsin,  at  Madison, 
from  those  who  were  working  the  system,  and  who  were 
thoroughly  familiar  with  its  merits  and  difficulties.  One 
of  the  most  distinguished  professors  of  the  University 
emphasises  the  value  of  accrediting  in  bringing  up  all 
the  schools  to  a  better  standard,  and  in  preventing  the 
University  from  getting  out  of  touch  with  the  needs  of  the 
population.  "  We  must  get  in  touch  with  the  system,"  he 
says.  Accrediting  makes  the  schools  better  for  all  pupils, 
not  only  for  those  going  to  college — since  the  improvement 
and  the  enrichment  of  the  curriculum  and  of  the  work 
generally  through  the  influence  of  the  University  is  a 
benefit  to  all.  In  the  State  of  Wisconsin  the  size  of 
classes  has  been  reduced,  the  overwork  of  teachers  checked, 
and  the  professional  qualifications  of  teachers  raised ;  and 
a  much  larger  percentage  of  graduates  now  find  work  in 
the  schools  through  the  accrediting  system.  The  same 
professor  was  familiar  with  the  examination  system  in  the 
East,  but  is  perfectly  satisfied  with  the  principles  of  the 
Western  system,  though  he  thinks  the  details  might  be 
improved.  In  his  opinion  the  East  is  coming  round  to 
see  the  merits  of  accrediting,  though  the  influence  of  the 
great  conservative  institutions  like  Harvard  and  Yale  is 
still  opposed  to  reform. 

The  Professor  of  Education  at  this  University  lays  stress 
naturally  on  the  injuries  to  the  best  educational  methods 
caused  by  external  examinations.  "  A  system  of  papers 


Colleges  and  Universities 

from  a  central  office  eliminates  the  spirit  and  content  of 
education,  but  these  can  be  observed;"  in  other  words,  he 
favours  inspection  as  a  test  of  good  teaching.  Another 
authority  in  the  same  University  emphasises  the  importance 
of  having  the  doors  open  for  pupils  to  proceed  to  college. 
"  Public  opinion  demands  that  they  should  come  on  from 
the  public  high  school  to  the  State  university." 

Dean  Burge,  who  has  been  in  the  University  for  many 
years,  stated  :  "  There  was  an  examination  in  earlier  days ; 
the  change  to  accrediting  has  made  no  difference  in  the 
standard.  Preparatory  work  was  cram.  The  examina- 
tion kept  out  large  numbers  of  students,  and  let  in  many 
we  did  not  want;  the  net  result,  therefore,  was  no 
better." 

The  only  unfavourable  opinion  heard  in  the  University 
of  Wisconsin  was  from  Canadians,  who  prefer  the  exami- 
nation system  not  only  as  securing  thoroughness,  but  as 
giving  power  of  work  and  of  overcoming  difficulties.  It 
is  worth  noticing  that  men  who  were  familiar  with  English 
conditions  and  who  were  engaged  in  working  the  accredit- 
ing system  in  America,  considered  it  would  work  even 
better  in  England  than  it  does  with  them. 

Some  Eastern  teachers,  while  feeling  very  keenly  the 
burden  and  evil  of  the  Eastern  examination  system,  which 
interferes  with  the  spontaneity  of  schools,  do  not  hope  for 
an  improvement,  for  they  say :  "  Since  in  the  East  the 
smaller  and  the  weaker  colleges,  and  the  colleges  for  women 
took  the  lead  in  adopting  the  accrediting  system,  Harvard 
and  Yale  despise  it ". 

The  accrediting  system  is  so  far  worthy  of  study  by 
English  people  that  it  may  be  well  to  enter  into  the 
method  of  working  it  in  detail  at  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin. Here,  as  we  have  seen,  the  system  is  so  elaborate 
as  to  require  a  special  committee  and  officers,  and  to  have 
an  important  official  in  charge  of  its  working. 

8* 


n6       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

The  conditions  under  which  schools  are  admitted  to  the  ac- 
credited list  are  as  follows : — 

Any  high  school  or  academy  whose  course  of  instruction 
covers  the  branches  requisite  for  admission  to  the  University 
may  be  admitted  to  its  accredited  list  of  preparatory  schools 
after  a  satisfactory  examination  by  a  committee  of  the  Faculty. 
Application  for  such  an  examination  may  be  made  by  an 
officer  of  the  school  to  the  President  of  the  University,  on  the 
basis  of  which  a  committee  of  the  Faculty  will  examine  the 
course  of  study  and  the  methods  of  instruction  in  the  school, 
and  on  their  favourable  recommendation  and  the  concurrence 
of  the  Faculty  it  will  be  entered  upon  the  accredited  list  of  the 
University.  No  school  will  be  placed  upon  the  list  whose  course 
of  study  is  not  fully  equal  to  the  four-year  course  of  high 
schools  recommended  by  the  State  Superintendent.  The 
graduates  of  such  an  approved  school  will  be  received  by  the 
University  without  examination,  on  the  presentation  of  a  certifi- 
cate showing  the  satisfactory  completion  of  the  fourteen  required 
units,  and  containing  the  recommendation  of  the  principal. 
Forms  for  such  certificates,  prepared  by  the  University,  must  be 
used,  and  may  be  obtained  from  the  Registrar.  These  certificates 
should  be  sent  to  the  University  before  ist  August  (Prospectus). 

The  blank  form  for  the  report  of  the  inspection  of  a 
school  is  arranged  as  follows  :  General  condition  of  school  ; 
teachers ;  course  of  study ;  laboratories  and  apparatus ; 
one  blank  space  for  general  remarks,  including  physical 
conditions ;  final  recommendation  on  the  inspection  and 
the  record  of  the  action  of  the  committee  and  of  the 
faculty.  Furthermore,  each  year  the  accredited  school 
sends  to  the  University  a  report  of  its  own  work,  giving 
for  each  study  and  for  each  portion  of  a  year  or  of  a  sub- 
ject the  number  of  students  enrolled  and  lessons  per  week, 
the  text-book  and  the  name  of  the  teacher.  It  also  sup- 
plies a  careful  list  of  the  teachers  with  their  qualifications, 
and  fills  in  the  subjoined  table : — 


Colleges  and  Universities  117 

Total  enrolment  in  high  school 

Total  enrolment  in  first  year 

Total  enrolment  in  second  year 

Total  enrolment  in  third  year 

Total  enrolment  in  fourth  year 

Number  of  recitations  per  day  for  each  pupil 

Length  of  recitation  period 

Number  of  daily  recitations  for  each  teacher , 

Number  of  units  required  for  graduation 

Hours  per  week  of  laboratory  work  required  in  physics 

Is  a  special  room  set  apart  for  physical  laboratory? 

Approximate  value  of  physical  apparatus,  $ 

Hours  per  week  of  laboratory  work  required  in  botany 

Number  of  dissecting  microscopes  owned  by  school 

Number  of  compound  microscopes  owned  by  school 

Is  a  special  room  set  apart  in  laboratory  for  botany  or 

biology  ? 

Number  of  volumes  in  school  library  (exclusive  of  public 

documents) 

Number  of  general  reference  books  (dictionaries,  atlases, 

encyclopaedias,  etc.) 

Number  of  reference  books  in  history 

Number  of  reference  books  for  foreign  language  study 

Number  of  reference  books  in  English 

Number  of  reference  books  in  science 

Money  expended  for  books  and  apparatus  last  year 

Has  the  town  a  free  public  library  ? 

Number  of  volumes  in  the  public  library 

Time  of  session A.M p.M 

The  University  issues  to  the  schools  full  lists  of  books 
recommended  for  the  high  school  library  ;  the  list  of  titles 
for  history  runs  to  twenty-two  pages,  and  for  Latin  to 
eight ;  these  lists  are,  of  course,  compiled  by  the  University 
faculties.  The  head  of  an  accredited  school  also  receives 
yearly  a  report  on  the  students  as  follows  from  the  Univer- 
sity : — 

DEAR  SIR, 

Believing  that  you  will  be  glad  to  learn  the  result  of 
the  first  semester's  work  of  the  students  entering  the  University 
from  your  school  this  year,  we  send  you  a  statement  showing  the 


n8       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

studies  pursued  and  the  grades  attained  in  each  subject.     This 
statement  is  sent  as  a  confidential  communication. 

This  is  followed  by  a  list  of  names  and  subjects  and  re- 
sults. It  will  be  obvious  from  all  this  that  the  relation 
between  the  universities  and  the  schools  is  indeed  close 
and  beneficial.  The  list  of  accredited  schools  numbers 
363  ;  there  are  100  high  schools  in  the  State  not  accredited. 
The  growth  of  the  high  schools  since  this  system  has 
started  is  said  to  be  very  marked,  especially  of  late. 

For  the  Minnesota  system  we  are  fortunate  enough  to 
have  an  account  from  the  State  Inspector  of  High  Schools, 
Mr.  George  B.  Aiton,  Minneapolis : — 

Our  system  of  accrediting  schools  is  very  simple.  The  au- 
thorities of  the  State  University  accredit  all  State  high  schools. 
Students  desiring  to  enter  the  University  present  a  certificate 
from  the  principal  of  the  high  school  or  superintendent  of  the 
high  school,  certifying  that  the  applicant  is  a  graduate  of  the 
school,  and  giving  also  a  list  of  his  standings  in  the  various 
subjects  pursued  by  him  in  the  school. 

The  applicant  is  admitted  to  such  a  department  of  the  Uni- 
versity and  to  such  studies  as  his  entrance  credits  apparently 
fit  him  for.  Our  State  normal  schools  are  likewise  accredited 
by  our  State  University.  There  are  also  a  few  private  or  de- 
nominational academies  which  are  accredited.  The  latter  are 
visited  by  a  committee  of  the  University  professors.  The  high 
school  visitation  is  done  by  the  State  Inspector.  It  should  be 
said,  however,  that  many  of  the  University  professors  have  a 
wide  acquaintanceship  throughout  the  State,  and  a  personal 
knowledge  of  whether  in  general  the  inspector  is  doing  his 
work  properly.  The  inspector,  however,  is  responsible  to  a 
State  High  School  Board,  not  to  the  University  faculty. 

We  think  that  our  system  has  the  merit  of  simplicity.  Our 
inspection  and  system  of  State  aid  is  free  to  proceed  along 
whatever  lines  seem  best,  without  undue  cramming  from  its 
University  side.  We  have  a  system  of  State  examinations, 


Colleges  and  Universities  119 

entirely  optional,  in  forty  subjects.  The  certificates  are  ac- 
cepted for  entrance  credits  by  all  institutions.  A  candidate  for 
admission  may,  therefore,  present  these  certificates  without  a 
diploma.  In  this  way  many  villages  are  practically  accredited. 
Even  a  teacher  in  a  rural  school  may  prepare  students  for  the 
State  University.  In  this  respect  our  system  in  a  way  resembles 
the  old  Scottish  parish  schools. 

Besides  the  organisation  of  each  university,  there  has 
been  formed  a  North  Central  Association  of  Colleges  and 
Schools  for  Mutual  Accrediting  over  the  immense  area  of 
the  Middle  West;  its  standards  of  admission  are  very 
high :  the  association  only  accredits  for  one  year,  rejects 
schools  with  an  abnormal  number  of  pupils  per  teacher, 
thirty  being  the  maximum,  requires  a  staff  of  at  least  four 
teachers  in  each  school,  approved  buildings,  sanitation, 
laboratory  and  library  facilities,  etc.,  and  requires  a  standard 
of  fifteen  units  for  graduation,  that  is  for  the  leaving 
certificate.  The  list  of  approved  schools  contained  is  large 
— the  report  form  is  reproduced  in  the  Appendix. 

The  system  of  the  University  of  Chicago  is  remarkable 
in  three  ways :  first,  because  the  University  is  not  a  State 
University,  but  in  American  eyes  a  private  institution ; 
second,  its  accrediting  is  by  subject  so  that  the  certificates 
can  be  presented  from  a  given  school  for  some  subjects, 
and  not  for  others;  and  third,  because  of  the  system  of 
conferences  with  the  head  teachers,  and  of  meetings  for 
pupils  from  the  affiliated  schools.  The  University  gives 
scholarships  on  contests,  when  hundreds  of  pupils  come 
up  to  the  University  and  are  hospitably  received  and 
entertained. 

The  inspection  by  the  University  officials  of  a  high 
school,  which  has  asked  to  be  put  on  the  accrediting  list 
for  any  of  these  universities,  closely  resembles  a  university 
inspection  with  us,  but  it  is  somewhat  more  genial  and 
social  in  character.  The  inspector  begins  by  meeting  the 


I2O      Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

whole  school  and  endeavouring  to  get  into  happy  relations 
with  the  pupils,  so  that  they  will  not  be  nervous  when  he 
visits  the  classes.1  Equally  important  is  a  kind  of  public 
meeting  in  the  town  where  the  inspector  has  an  oppor- 
tunity of  appealing  to  the  local  pride  in  the  high  school, 
and  of  making  suggestions  to  parents  and  to  the  local 
education  authority,  and  of  appealing  in  general  to  public 
opinion.  One  can  imagine  what  a  difference  this  would 
make  in  some  little  Western  town,  and  what  stimulus  and 
guidance  the  university  inspector  can  give. 

ADMISSION  ON  CERTIFICATE. 

Although  the  accrediting  system  is  characteristic  of  the 
West,  there  are  a  good  many  Eastern  colleges  which  admit 
on  certificate,  that  is,  there  are  certain  schools  whose  certi- 
ficate that  a  student  has  passed  through  a  specified  course 
of  study  is  accepted  by  the  college  as  an  equivalent  for  the 
entrance  examination.  This  plan  has  obvious  weaknesses ; 
the  college  does  not  inspect  the  school ;  the  schools  and 
college  do  not  form  part  of  a  State  system,  and  there  is  no 
doubt  that  a  struggling  college  will  be  so  anxious  to  secure 
students  as  to  accept  certificates  from  good  and  bad  alike. 
President  Eliot,  writing  in  1890,  calls  the  system  "the 
feeblest  of  methods,"  and  states  that  it  has  no  safeguards 
whatever.2 

Of  late  years,  however,  a  voluntary  association  of  New 
England  colleges  using  this  system  has  been  established, 
and  it  may  be  assumed  that  such  a  body  has  taken  away 
some  of  the  reproaches  levelled  at  the  method.  When  the 
Board  was  organised  there  were  534  schools  on  the  ap- 

JOne  is  reminded  of  an  incident  in  an  English  inspection,  when  a  class 
of  eleven-year-olds,  having  seen  the  university  inspector  on  the  platform 
at  prayers  standing  beside  the  headmistress,  asked  of  their  teacher 
next  day:  "  When  is  Miss  B.'s  nice  friend  coming  to  see  us  ?  " 

2  Educational  Reform,  p.  213. 


Colleges  and  Universities  121 

proved  lists,  and  the  list  of  the  Fifth  Annual  Report  contains 
only  247.  The  society  is  called  the  "  New  England  College 
Entrance  Certificate  Board,"  and  the  address  of  the  secre- 
tary is  159  Brown  Street,  Providence,  R.I.  Thirteen  col- 
leges of  repute  are  now  represented,  including  Amherst, 
Brown  and  Bowdoin,  for  men,  and  Smith  and  Wellesley, 
for  women.  It  appears  from  the  reports  that  no  school  is 
considered  which  does  not  regularly  send  students  to  one  or 
more  colleges  represented  on  the  Board.  The  application 
of  a  school  for  approval  may  be  refused  for  one  or  more 
of  the  following  reasons :  First,  because  the  records  of 
pupils  sent  to  colleges  represented  on  the  Board  are  un- 
satisfactory, and  second,  because  the  curriculum  of  the 
school,  the  number  and  preparation  of  the  teachers  and 
the  equipment  may  be  unsatisfactory.  Schools  are  re- 
jected or  dropped  from  the  list  because  of  the  poor  record 
of  their  students  who  have  been  admitted  to  college  on 
certificate ;  the  real  test  on  which  the  Board  depends  is 
the  report  from  the  colleges  of  what  the  students  admitted 
on  certificate  do  during  the  first  year,  and  the  annual  re- 
ports of  the  Board  contain  careful  statistics  on  this  point 
The  Third  Annual  Report  states  that  up  to  that  time  sixty- 
eight  schools  had  been  rejected  because  the  records  of  the 
pupils,  sent  on  certificate  during  the  previous  three  years  to 
the  colleges  represented  on  the  Board,  were  not  satisfactory. 
No  school  is  approved  for  more  than  three  years ;  the  list 
is  interesting ;  it  includes,  of  course,  a  good  many  high 
schools  and  a  certain  number  of  private  schools.  In  the 
case  of  some  of  the  women's  colleges,  notably  Wellesley, 
there  is  a  close  relation  between  some  of  the  preparatory 
schools  and  the  college,  since  alumnae  are  heads,  and 
teachers  in  school  are  keeping  in  touch  with  the  college. 
Vassar,  in  the  State  of  New  York,  takes  special  precau- 
tions of  its  own  to  safeguard  the  certification  system  :  a 
school  has  to  fill  up  a  detailed  form  giving  an  elaborate 


122       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

description  of  the  course  of  study,  of  the  prospectus  of  the 
school,  and  the  qualifications  of  the  staff.  Its  application 
for  the  certificate  privilege  is  submitted  to  all  the  heads  of 
departments  in  the  college  successively,  and  on  their  criti- 
cisms the  school  is  admitted  or  not.  The  individual  pupil 
presents  a  certificate  giving  full  details  of  her  work,  and  a 
signed  statement  by  the  principal  of  the  school  that  "  She 
has  pursued  the  following  studies  and  has  passed  satis- 
factory examinations  therein  ".  Even  with  all  these  pre- 
cautions, however,  some  of  the  Vassar  faculty  much  regret 
the  absence  of  any  personal  inspection  of  the  school  by 
officials  from  the  college. 

ADMISSION  REQUIREMENTS. 

We  have  stated  in  the  introduction  that  the  admission 
requirements  of  an  American  college  are  reckoned  in  units, 
the  unit  being  a  course  of  five  lesson  periods  weekly  through 
the  academic  year  at  the  preparatory  school.  This  method 
of  reckoning  is  used  both  in  examinations  and  in  the  ac- 
crediting system,  though  it  is  obviously  more  important  in 
the  latter.  It  may  be  of  interest  to  give  the  requirements 
of  some  of  the  leading  colleges  in  detail :  all  require  Eng- 
lish, which  always  involves  the  reading  of  a  certain  number 
of  standard  books,  as  well  as  composition ;  mathematics  is 
also  compulsory.  Latin  no  longer  preserves  its  place  as  a 
compulsory  subject,  but  many  colleges  still  require  it ;  phy- 
sics is  compulsory  with  some,  and  modern  languages  are 
often  required. 

In  the  West,  as  might  be  expected,  the  requirements  are 
often  less  rigid  ;  in  some  cases  neither  Latin  nor  any  other 
foreign  language  is  compulsory ;  the  question  as  to  whether 
manual  training  can  be  offered  as  an  optional  subject  is  a 
burning  one  at  present,  but  some  universities  allow  it.  In 
Minnesota  fifteen  units  are  required,  four  in  English,  two 


Colleges  and  Universities  123 

and  a  half  in  mathematics,  and  eight  and  a  half  in  others ; 
at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  fourteen  are  required,  two  in 
English,  two  in  mathematics,  and  two  in  a  language ;  the 
other  eight  may  be  made  up  by  doing  more  in  the  subjects 
already  offered,  or  by  doing  history  and  other  languages, 
science  and  manual  training.  At  the  University  of 
Chicago  fifteen  units  are  required,  the  prescribed  list 
being  English  three,  mathematics  two  and  a  half,  foreign 
language  three,  the  remaining  six  and  a  half  to  be  selected 
freely. 

In  the  East  the  requirements  are  as  a  rule  more  exacting, 
Latin  or  good  science  being  often  compulsory,  and  more 
set  books  are  required  in  English  and  languages.  History 
is  not  commonly  required,  but  is  generally  offered,  and 
French  and  German  are  increasingly  offered  as  options. 
Columbia  requires  fifteen  points,  three  in  English,  three  in 
elementary  mathematics,  and  from  candidates  for  a  degree 
in  arts,  four  in  Latin ;  science  candidates  may  present 
chemistry  and  physics  and  some  other  subjects  instead  of 
Latin.  The  Columbia  optional  list  includes  intermediate 
and  advanced  papers  for  which  further  credit  may  be 
obtained. 

At  Bryn  Mawr  the  conditions  of  admittance  are  extra- 
ordinarily hard ;  we  know  no  English  university  which  de- 
mands anything  like  as  much.  Stated  shortly,  their  rule 
implies  a  matriculation  with  six  subjects,  mathematics, 
English  and  history,  Latin,  two  other  languages  and 
science,  while  the  standard  in  any  one  of  these  subjects  is 
never  low,  and  in  some  cases  rather  high.  Reckoning  in 
units,  twenty  are  required,  but  if  fifteen  can  be  obtained  in 
the  examination  the  failures  can  be  made  up  at  college  by 
extra  work,  as,  for  instance,  the  three  units  of  the  third 
language.  The  official  calendar  gives  the  following  details ; 
the  standard  of  work  in  English  is  perhaps  better  worth 
quoting  than  that  in  any  other  subject,  since  its  interest  is 


124       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

more  general,  and  since  the  strenuous  demand  in  English 
is  a  peculiarity  of  American  entrance  examinations. 

TABULAR  STATEMENTS. 

In  order  to  obtain  a  certificate  of  admission  to  Bryn  Mawr 
College  the  candidate  must  be  examined  in  all  of  the  following 
subjects,  counted  as  equivalent  to  twenty  sections,  must  take 
the  examination  in  not  more  than  two  divisions,  and  must  pass 
not  fewer  than  four  sections  in  the  fourth  division  and  not 
fewer  than  fifteen  sections  in  the  two  divisions.  No  candidate 
will  be  admitted  to  Bryn  Mawr  College  if  conditioned  in  more 
than  five  sections. 

Subjects.  Sections. 

Algebra 2 

Plane  Geometry 2 

Latin  Grammar  and  Prose  Composition I 

Latin  Prose  Authors 2 

Latin  Poetry I 

English  Grammar i 

English  Composition 3 

History X 

Science.        ............i 

Greek  Grammar  and  Prose  Com- 
position      i 

Greek  Prose  Authors     .         .         .    i 


Greek  Poetry        .         .         .         .  X 
German   Grammar  and  Transla- 
tion     3 

French  Grammar  and  Translation  3 


Two  of  these  three  languages      6 


The  number  of  sections  allotted  to  each  subject  indicates  approximately 
the  time  which  should  be  devoted  to  preparation  for  that  subject.  Thus  if, 
for  example,  the  candidate  studies  five  subjects  in  each  year  during  the  last 
four  years  of  preparation  for  college,  then  Mathematics,  Latin  and  English 
should  be  studied  for  all  four  years,  since  each  counts  as  four  sections  of 
the  examination ;  History  and  Science  should  be  studied  for  one  year,  since 
each  counts  as  one  section ;  and  the  two  languages  (Greek  and  German, 
or  Greek  and  French,  or  German  and  French)  should  each  be  studied  for 
three  years,  since  each  counts  as  three  sections,  or  three-twentieths  of  the 
examination. 


Colleges  and  Universities  125 

ENGLISH. 

(i)  English  Grammar.  (2),  (3)  and  (4)  English  Composi- 
tion. The  examinations  in  grammar  and  composition  may  be 
divided  and  may  be  taken  in  either  division  of  the  entrance  ex- 
amination. Although  in  and  after  the  spring  examinations  of 
1906  the  examination  in  English  will  count  as  four  points  it 
will  not  be  increased  in  difficulty ;  it  will  consist  of  a  critical 
composition,  such  as  has  hitherto  been  required,  and  in  addition, 
in  order  that  the  three  sections  of  the  examination  may  not  de- 
pend solely  on  this  critical  paper,  of  one  or  two  paragraphs  in 
which  the  candidate  will  be  asked  to  give  in  descriptive  or 
narrative  form  the  substance  of  important  parts  of  the  required 
reading. 

In  1908  candidates  mast  be  familiar  with  Chaucer's  Prologue  and 
Knight's  Tale ;  Shakespeare's  Richard  II.,  Henry  IV.  (expurgated),  Henry 
V.t  Julius  Casar,  and  The  Merchant  of  Venice ;  Milton's  LJ  Allegro,  II 
Penseroso,  Lycidas  and  Paradise  Lost,  Books  I.  and  II. ;  the  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  Papers  in  the  Spectator ;  Matthew  Arnold's  Essay  on  Gray  ; 
Gray's  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard ;  Burke's  Speech  on  Conciliation 
with  America;  Wordsworth's  Michael,  Intimations  of  Immortality, 
"  Three  years  she  grew  in  sun  and  shower,"  The  Solitary  Reaper,  "O 
Nightingale  I  thou  surely  art,"  "  The  world  is  too  much  with  us,"  "  Earth 
has  not  anything  to  show  more  fair,"  "  It  is  not  to  be  thought  of  that  the 
flood";  Coleridge's  Ancient  Mariner  and  Christabel;  Shelley's  Adonais, 
Sensitive  Plant,  To  a  Skylark,  and  Ode  to  the  West  Wind;  Keats's  Eve 
of  St.  Agnes,  Ode  to  Autumn,  and  Ode  to  a  Nightingale;  Tennyson's 
Passing  of  Arthur ;  Scott's  Ivanhoe ;  Hawthorne's  House  of  the  Seven 
Gables;  Stevenson's  Kidnapped. 

As  is  well  known  the  Harvard  standard  for  admission  is 
exceedingly  high,  and  nothing  but  an  examination  will  do. 
The  University  holds  its  own  examinations  all  over  the 
United  States,  and  in  London,  Bonn,  and  Honolulu.  It 
does,  however,  as  we  have  said,  recognise  the  correspond- 
ing papers  of  the  College  Entrance  Examinations  Board. 
It  is  not  easy  to  reckon  in  units  the  Harvard  requirements 
as  given  in  the  official  register ;  the  points  mentioned,  how- 
ever, are  not  quite  the  same  apparently  as  the  regular 


126       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

unit  It  is  obvious,  nevertheless,  that  the  standard  is 
higher  than  the  ordinary  English  matriculation  ;  more 
subjects  are  required,  and  at  least  two  advanced  papers 
must  be  taken.  For  the  A.B.  degree  an  ancient  language 
(Greek  or  Latin)  is  compulsory,  for  the  science  degree 
modern  languages  are  sufficient.  Failure  in  some  subjects 
may  therefore  be  made  up  after  entering  college.  We  sub- 
join from  the  register  :  — 

DETAILED  STATEMENT  FOR  CANDIDATES  FOR  THE  DEGREE  OF  A.B. 

The  studies  which  may  be  presented  in  satisfaction  of  the  re- 
quirements for  admission  by  candidates  for  the  Degree  of  A.B. 
are  named  together  in  the  following  lists.  The  figure  attached 
to  each  study  indicates  the  relative  weight  which  will  be  given 
to  that  study  in  determining  the  question  of  the  candidate's  fit- 
ness for  admission  :  — 

Elementary.  Advanced. 

English  (4) 

Greek  (4)  Greek  (2) 

Latin  (4)  Latin  (2) 

German  (2)  German  (2) 

French  (2)  French  (2) 

(One  of  the  following  five  : 

"GrfeKRoTaf""''"^  Sh  and  African 

I     English  and  American       <2>       1 


^     of  Europe 
Harmony  (2)  Counterpoint  (2) 

Algebra  (2)  Algebra  (i) 

Geometry  (3),  or  Logarithms  and  Trigonometry  (i) 

Plane  Geometry  (2)  Solid  Geometry  (i) 

Astronomy  (i) 

Physics  (2)  Meteorology  (i) 

Chemistry  (2) 
Geography  (i),  or 

Physiography  (i) 
Anatomy,  etc.  (i) 

A  candidate  for  admission  must  offer  from  this  list  studies  amounting 
to  twenty-six  points,  of  which  points  at  least  four  must  be  in  advanced 
studies.     The  studies  offered  must  include  :  — 

English  .....         ....     4 

One  ancient  language  (Elem.  Latin  or  Elem.  Greek)       .    4 


Colleges  and  Universities  127 

One  modem  foreign  language  (Elem.  German  or  Elem. 

French) 2 

Elementary  History 2 

Algebra 2 

Geometry  or  Plane  Geometry 3  or  2 

Studies  amounting  to  two  points  from  the  following  scien- 
ces (Elem.  Physics,  Chemistry,  Geography  or  Physio- 
graphy, Anatomy,  Physiology  and  Hygiene)  .  .  2 

19  or  18 

The  Harvard  elementary  papers  in  some  subjects  do  not 
appear  as  hard  as  an  English  matriculation,  the  algebra 
and  geometry  are  certainly  easier,  but  if  a  candidate  were 
good  in  other  subjects  and  had  to  take  advanced  mathe- 
matics he  would  need  much  more  than  in  English,  im- 
aginary quantities,  determinants,  solid  geometry  and 
spherical  trigonometry.  The  elementary  history  seems 
easy,  and  the  advanced  not  very  difficult ;  the  advanced 
language  papers  are  like  those  set  as  higher  alternatives  in 
the  Northern  Universities.  We  subjoin1  the  compulsory 
English  paper  of  June,  1907  [there  being  a  much  harder 
English  paper,  which,  if  omitted,  may  be  made  up  after 
admission  to  college],  and  some  advanced  history  papers. 
The  Elementary  Latin,  according  to  the  opinion  of  an 
experienced  teacher  of  classics,  requires  a  greater  quantity 
of  work,  especially  of  the  reading  of  classical  authors,  than 
an  ordinary  English  pass  matriculation.  The  grammar 
and  composition  are  about  the  same. 

After  careful  study  of  the  Harvard  requirements  and 
examination  papers  themselves,  one  cannot  be  surprised 
that  very  careful  teaching  has  to  be  given  in  the  pre- 
paratory schools,  or  that  the  public  high  school  with  its 
large  classes  and  lack  of  individual  attention  sends  only 
a  quarter  of  the  students,  75  per  cent  being  prepared  in 
academies  and  private  schools.  It  is  a  proof  of  the  Ameri- 

1  See  Appendix. 


128       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

can  zeal  for  education,  the  professional  skill  of  teachers 
and  the  earnestness  and  ability  of  American  boys,  that 
there  should  be  thousands  of  them  in  Cambridge  at  one 
time  who  have  passed  such  difficult  examinations.  Great 
indeed  must  be  the  attraction  of  the  Harvard  "  crimson  "  to 
have  induced  the  dull  or  idle  son  of  a  rich  man  to  have 
climbed  so  high  a  barrier.  How  many  undergraduates 
would  there  be  at  Oxford  if  the  Harvard  standard  of  en- 
trance had  been  applied  there  ? 

It  is  a  fascinating  but  futile  task  to  endeavour  to  equate 
the  examinations  of  the  College  Entrance  Examinations 
Board  and  the  American  entrance  requirements  generally 
with  the  English  standards  for  matriculation.  If  one  tries 
to  reckon  in  units,  the  English  matriculation  comes  out  as  at 
least  at  sixteen  units  ;  the  calculation  is,  however,  difficult, 
because  we  do  not  take  our  subjects  in  school  year  by  year, 
a  lesson  a  day,  but  keep  them  all  running  simultaneously 
with  a  fewer  number  of  lessons  a  week.  Matriculation 
Latin  takes  at  least  three  years  for  girls,  four  lessons  a 
week,  and  we  do  more  in  a  lesson  than  the  American 
schools  do ;  taking  this  as  a  guide  one  might  estimate  the 
Joint  Matriculation  of  the  Northern  Universities  as  follows 
(for  arts  students) : — 

English  and  history,  three  and  a  half  units,  or  more. 

Mathematics,  algebra,  geometry,  arithmetic,  four  units  or  more. 

Latin,  three  units  or  more. 

French,  three  units. 

Greek  or  German,  two  units. 

Total,  fifteen  and  a  half  units,  or  more,  say  sixteen. 

It  is,  however,  very  difficult  to  be  sure  of  this  calculation, 
since  most  of  the  subjects  have  been  studied  for  at  least 
five  years ;  all  one  can  be  certain  of  is  the  Greek  or  German, 
which  does  take  two  years  to  do,  working  at  the  American 


Colleges  and  Universities  129 

rate  of  1 50  lessons  a  year.     Taking  science,  the  scheme 
would  work  out  roughly : — 

English,  history,  and  mathematics,  seven  and  a  half  units. 
French,  three  units. 
Chemistry,  three  units. 
Natural  history,  three  units. 
Total,  sixteen  and  a  half  units. 

It  would  appear,  therefore,  that  the  English  requirements 
are  in  general  a  little  above  the  American ;  the  require- 
ments for  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  are 
French,  German,  and  physics,  as  well  as  English,  history, 
and  rather  difficult  mathematics,  so  that  its  examination 
is  probably  harder  than  matriculation,  though  the  standard 
in  English  and  languages  is  lower.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
Harvard  entrance  seems  on  paper  much  harder  than  our 
Northern  Universities  Matriculation,  and  yet  the  Carnegie 
Foundation  estimates  it  as  under  sixteen  units  in  value. 

THE  CARNEGIE  FOUNDATION. 

The  whole  question  of  units  and  entrance  requirements 
is  assuming  extraordinary  importance  at  present  in  the 
United  States,  since  it  has  been  fixed  by  the  authorities 
of  the  Carnegie  Pension  Fund  as  a  means  of  discriminat- 
ing between  institutions  which  are  of  sufficiently  high 
standing  to  participate  in  the  benefits  of  the  endowment, 
and  those  which,  while  they  bear  the  name  of  a  college  or 
university,  are  doing  work  that  is  really  only  of  school 
standard. 

The  Carnegie  Foundation  for  the  Advancement  of 
Teaching,  as  it  is  properly  called,  is  every  year  taking  up  a 
more  prominent  and  useful  position  in  relation  to  the  whole 
subject  of  standards,  organisation,  and  finance  of  the  col- 
leges and  universities  of  the  United  States.  It  is  thus  doing 

9 


130      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

a  most  useful  educational  work,  which  probably  could  be 
done  in  no  other  way.  Any  one  who  wishes  to  understand 
American  higher  education  should  obtain  its  reports  from 
the  office,  542  5th  Avenue,  New  York  City.  In  April, 
1905,  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  established  the  Foundation, 
endowing  it  with  bonds  to  the  value  of  ten  millions  of 
dollars  (two  million  sterling),  the  revenue  from  which  was 
"  to  provide  retiring  pensions  for  the  teachers  of  university 
colleges  and  technical  schools  in  our  country,  Canada,  and 
Newfoundland".  No  distinction  of  race,  creed,  sex  or 
colour  was  to  be  made,  but  sectarian  institutions  were  de- 
finitely excluded.  At  first,  State  universities  were  also 
excluded.  On  3ist  March  of  this  year,  1908,  Mr.  Carnegie 
added  five  million  dollars  to  the  endowment  of  the  Founda- 
tion, in  order  that  State  universities  might  be  admitted  to 
its  privileges. 

The  first  Board  of  Trustees  selected  to  administer  the 
fund  were  Charles  W.  Eliot,  Nicholas  Murray  Butler, 
William  Peterson  of  McGill,  Montreal,  the  Presidents  of 
Yale,  Princeton,  Chicago,  and  other  distinguished  persons. 
The  institution  was  incorporated  as  the  Carnegie  Founda- 
tion by  the  State  of  New  York.  Its  purpose  is  described 
in  the  first  annual  report  as  follows  : — 

It  had  for  a  long  time  prior  to  the  establishment  of  this 
Foundation  been  evident  that  the  time  was  approaching  when, 
for  the  sake  of  education  no  less  than  of  the  teacher,  the  re- 
muneration of  the  teacher's  calling  must  be  increased.  The 
teacher  carries  into  his  profession  a  large  measure  of  devotion 
and  finds  his  chief  recompense  in  the  work  itself ;  but,  in  the 
long  run,  it  is  clear  that  strong  men  will  be  attracted  in  diminish- 
ing numbers  to  this  profession  unless  with  the  moral  and  in- 
tellectual reward  there  can  be  coupled  at  least  stability  of 
employment  and  protection  against  old  age.  Interested  in  this 
situation,  and  desiring  to  help  in  a  large  way  the  whole  body  of 
American  teachers,  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  decided  to  found  an 


Colleges  and  Universities  131 

agency  for  providing  in  the  higher  institutions  of  learning  in 
America  a  system  of  retiring  allowances ;  and  in  doing  this  he 
had  in  mind  not  only  the  betterment  of  the  teacher,  the  relief 
of  men  who  find  themselves  helpless  after  long  years  of  honour- 
able work,  the  dignifying  of  the  teacher's  calling,  but  also  the 
freshening  of  the  work  of  the  colleges  themselves,  by  enabling 
them  to  put  new  men  into  the  places  of  those  whom  old  age  or 
disability  has  rendered  unfit  for  service. 

This  reform  in  the  teaching  profession  is  necessary  every- 
where, but  it  is  particularly  important  to  the  United  States, 
where  professors  are  paid  very  badly  compared  with 
Germany  or  England,  allowing  for  the  extra  cost  of  living. 
Almost  the  first  business  of  the  institution  was  to  deter- 
mine which,  out  of  950  institutions  in  English-speaking 
North  America  calling  themselves  colleges  and  universities, 
really  deserved  the  dignity  of  such  a  rank.  The  following 
definition  was  adopted  : — 

An  institution  to  be  ranked  as  a  college  must  have  at  least 
six  (6)  professors  giving  their  entire  time  to  college  and  university 
work,  a  course  of  four  full  years  in  liberal  arts  and  sciences, 
and  should  require  for  admission  not  less  than  the  usual  four 
years  of  academic  or  high  school  preparation,  or  its  equivalent, 
in  addition  to  the  pre-academic  or  grammar  school  studies. 

Fifty  institutions  in  the  United  States,  and  two  in 
Canada — McGill,  Montreal,  and  Dalhousie,  Halifax — were 
accepted  in  the  first  year ;  eleven  of  these  are  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  eleven  in  New  York,  which  shows  at  once 
the  place  these  two  States  take  in  higher  education.  As 
we  have  said,  the  standard  of  entrance  measured  in  the 
ordinary  unit  explained  above  has  been  taken  as  a 
characteristic  on  which  the  recognition  depends. 

The  better  high  schools  require  pupils  to  recite  on  the  average 
four  studies  daily,  five  times  a  week.  Assuming  a  study  pur- 

9* 


132       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

sued  for  one  year  with  recitations  five  times  weekly  as  a  unit, 
the  ordinary  high  school  course  would  therefore  furnish  in  four 
years  sixteen  such  units,  and  some  of  the  American  colleges 
require  as  much  work  as  this  for  admission.  Taking  into  con- 
sideration the  need  for  reviews,  for  possibility  of  changes  of 
study  and  other  conditions  likely  to  arise,  fourteen  such  units 
seem  a  fair  measure  of  the  work  of  the  high  school,  and  this  is 
the  standard  which  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  this  Foundation 
has  adopted  in  its  definition  of  a  college.  If  a  college  requires 
fourteen  such  units  for  admission,  it  is  maintaining  the  proper 
distinction,  according  to  the  educational  practice  of  the  present 
day,  between  the  work  of  the  college  and  the  work  of  the  high 
school. 

Harvard  is  stated  to  require  15*7  units,  Columbia  14*5, 
and  Vassar  the  same.  Institutions  not  yet  admitted  are 
raising  their  entrance  requirements,  and  those  recognised 
in  the  second  year,  which  had  been  slightly  below  the  stand- 
ard, adjusted  their  requirements  to  fourteen  units.  The 
Foundation  is  also  undertaking  an  inquiry  into  the  various 
methods  of  the  legal  connection  of  colleges  and  universities 
with  religious  organisations,  and  the  second  report  gives 
an  interesting  account  of  the  denominational  control  on 
colleges.  Such  connections  and  control  are  defended  on 
the  following  grounds  : — 

First,  a  belief  that  such  institutions  are  more  likely  to  be 
conducted  by  strictly  religious  men  than  other  colleges  ;  second, 
the  financial  assistance  obtained  from  the  denomination  ;  third, 
and  perhaps  most  influential  of  all,  a  desire  for  a  constituency 
to  which  to  appeal  for  students. 

The  Report  for  1907  also  contains  authoritative  essays 
on  the  place  of  the  college  in  American  education,  the 
evolution  of  the  American  type  of  university,  and  the  dis- 
tinction between  the  two.  The  Board  is  now  investigating 
the  relation  of  efficiency  to  cost  in  colleges  and  universities, 


Colleges  and  Universities  133 

including  the  number  of  pupils  per  professor.  Clearly, 
then,  the  Foundation  is  doing  a  most  important  work, 
quite  apart  from  the  pensions  and  their  effect  in  strengthen- 
ing university  faculties.  Its  own  proud  claim  is  already 
substantiated. 

Here  for  the  first  time  is  created  an  agency  which  is  con- 
scientiously seeking  to  consider  the  problems  of  institutions 
from  the  larger  view  of  the  welfare  of  the  teachers  in  all  colleges 
and  universities,  and  to  take  into  account  the  interests  not 
alone  of  a  community  or  of  a  section,  but  of  a  continent. 

COLLEGE  ENTRANCE  EXAMINATIONS  BOARD. 

However  one  may  wish  that  England  would  abandon 
the  examination  system,  it  is  not  likely  to  do  so  for  some 
time  to  come ;  it  is  therefore  desirable  for  English  people 
to  study  the  American  methods  of  minimising  the  evils  of 
examinations  when  the  principle  of  examination  is  itself 
adopted  or  even  welcomed.  A  most  valuable  organisation 
for  this  purpose  is  the  College  Entrance  Examinations 
Board.1  It  is  a  case  of  that  voluntary  co-operation  among 
educators  which  has  done  so  much  to  secure  uniformity  in 
America;  it  witnesses  also  to  the  desirability  of  the  re- 
ciprocal interchange  of  Matriculation  Examinations  at 
different  universities.  This  movement  has  begun  in  Eng- 
land and  has  made  some  progress,  but  we  still  await  one 
of  the  most  important  steps — the  equalisation  of  the  Lon- 
don and  the  Northern  Universities  Matriculation. 

In  the  United  States  the  colleges  began  the  movement 
eight  years  ago,  May,  1900.  A  meeting  was  held  at 
Columbia,  the  then  President  being  chairman,  and  Dr.  N. 
M.  Butler,  the  President  to-day,  being  secretary.  At  first 
only  colleges  of  the  Middle  States  and  Maryland  belonged, 

1  Post  Office  Sub-Station  84,  New  York,  N.Y.  The  examination 
papers  can  be  procured  from  Ginn  &  Co. 


134      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

but  others  gradually  joined,  Harvard  in  1904,  until  to-day 
the  Board  consists  of  twenty-six  colleges  and  universities 
(each  sending  one  member,  generally  the  President  or 
Dean),  and  eight  representatives  of  the  secondary  schools. 
These  latter  are  partly  appointed  by  associations  of 
teachers  and  partly  by  the  Board  itself.  There  is  no 
woman  among  these  schools'  representatives  and  never 
has  been,  though  on  the  other  sections  women  are  very 
fairly  represented  by  university  women,  Presidents  and 
Deans  of  certain  women's  colleges. 

The  Board  has  regulations  for  the  admission  of  colleges 
to  its  federation :  one  rule  being  that  there  must  be  at  least 
fifty  students  in  the  regular  entering  classes.  Each  college 
holding  membership  pays  a  subscription  of  §100  (=  £20)  ; 
the  other  expenses  come  from  the  fees  of  matriculation 
students,  85  (=  £1).  We  may  quote,  from  the  Report  of 
1902,  the  official  statement  of  its  main  principle,  the  co- 
operation of  the  secondary  schools : — 

The  chief  aim  of  the  College  Entrance  Examinations  Board  is 
to  secure,  by  means  of  a  co-operation  between  all  those  vitally 
interested,  that  uniformity  of  standards  which  is  essential  for  the 
general  systematic  improvement  of  the  conditions  of  secondary 
education.  In  this  co-operation  representatives  both  of  colleges 
and  of  secondary  schools  must  have  part.  The  Board  recog- 
nises that  it  would  be  quite  as  inappropriate  for  a  body  com- 
posed solely  of  college  professors  to  decide  by  a  vote  questions 
affecting  in  an  important  way  the  curriculum  of  the  secondary 
schools  as  it  would  be  for  a  body  of  school  teachers  independ- 
ently to  determine  questions  affecting  the  college  curriculum. 
In  every  important  problem  that  affects  the  relations  between  the 
college  and  the  secondary  school,  the  judgment  of  those  who 
have  achieved  for  themselves  eminence  in  the  world  of  second- 
ary education  is  at  least  of  equal  importance  with  the  judgment 
of  those  who  have  attained  similar  distinction  in  the  college 
world.  In  recognition  of  these  facts  secondary  school  teachers 


Colleges  and  Universities  135 

have  been  associated  with  the  work  of  the  Board  at  every  stage. 
They  are  members  of  the  Board  itself,  they  serve  upon  the 
committees  of  examiners  and  upon  the  committees  of  readers. 
Their  criticisms  and  suggestions  are  invited  in  regard  to  every 
part  of  the  work,  and  receive  consideration  equally  with  the 
suggestions  and  criticisms  that  come  from  the  representatives 
of  the  colleges. 

It  will  be  seen  that  here  the  Board  surpasses  any  exist- 
ing English  examining  body.  They  face,  of  course,  the 
objection  that  the  pupils  of  the  representative  teachers 
might  have  an  unfair  advantage  in  the  examinations.  Dr. 
Butler  answers  this  in  the  1901  Report : — 

But,  more  seriously,  it  may  be  said  that  the  secondary  school 
representatives,  chosen  for  this  purpose  year  by  year,  must  be 
men  and  women  whose  character  and  reputation  protect  them 
from  any  suspicion  of  using  the  knowledge  which  their  positions 
as  examiners  bring  them.  In  the  second  place,  this  Board  has 
demonstrated  in  its  year  of  existence  that  there  are  no  such 
embarrassments  as  have  been  suggested. 

He  points  out  further  that  for  college  admission  the  test 
should  not  be  a  struggle  between  the  colleges  and  schools 
over  a  kind  of  examination  match. 

It  follows,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  only  wise,  but  important 
and  highly  desirable,  that  representatives  of  the  secondary 
schools,  who  have  taught  and  are  teaching  the  pupils,  should 
confer  with  representatives  of  the  colleges,  who  are  to  teach 
them,  in  arranging  and  enforcing  a  test  the  sole  purpose  of 
which  is  to  determine  whether  the  pupil  is  ready  to  go  forward 
with  advantage  from  the  one  teacher  or  institution  to  the  other. 

The  rule  as  to  examiners  is  that  for  each  subject  there 
shall  be  three,  two  professors  in  colleges  and  universities, 
and  one  an  acting  teacher  in  a  secondary  school.  Women 
are  always  found  among  the  examiners,  though  compara- 


136       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

tively  few  in  number,  and  women  school  teachers  are  very 
rarely  included.  For  1908  the  names  of  two  women  oc- 
curred out  of  the  forty-five,  one  a  professor  of  botany  and 
the  other  of  English,  in  women's  colleges. 

The  regulations  of  the  examination  are  based  on  the 
recommendation  of  different  voluntary  associations  and 
committees,  like  the  Committee  of  Seven  for  History  ; 
papers  are  set  in  fifteen  subjects  and  there  is  a  varying 
number  of  papers  for  each  subject,  for  different  standards, 
different  set  books,  etc.  (thirteen  Latin  papers,  seven  Greek, 
nine  Mathematics).  From  the  results  the  particular  col- 
lege selects  the  returns  it  requires,  and  accepts  or  refuses 
the  student  accordingly. 

Each  institution  will  determine,  after  inspection  of  the  certi- 
ficate, for  what  subjects  the  candidate  shall  receive  credit,1  and 
whether  or  not  the  candidate  can  be  admitted.  The  Board 
examines  for  college,  but  does  not  admit  to  college. 

(FORM  OF  CERTIFICATE.) 
College  Entrance  Examinations  Board. 

This  is  to  certify  that  at  an  examination  held  at 

,    on ,    19 , 

M , 

age years,  a  pupil  of  the school, 

of 

appeared  for  examination  in  the  following  subjects,  and  has 
received  the  ratings  entered  below. 

A  selection  from  the  statistics  may  be  interesting.  In 
the  first  year,  1901,  there  were  nearly  1,000  applications, 
in  1907,  3,048  candidates  entered.  There  are  local  centres 
all  over  the  United  States,  and  examinations  are  generally 

1  Every  college  and  scientific  school  will  determine  for  itself  the  "  pass- 
ing mark  "  in  each  of  the  subjects  that  it  requires  for  admission. 


Colleges  and  Universities  137 

held  in  London,  Paris,  Geneva  and  some  German  centre 
(Frankfurt  or  Dresden).  A  touch  familiar  to  England 
appears  in  the  award  of  competitive  scholarships  on  the 
results.  The  ages  of  the  candidates  ranged  from  thirteen 
to  forty-five,  but  the  maximum  number  were  between 
sixteen  and  nineteen  years  of  age.  The  candidates  were 
intending  to  enter  a  large  number  of  institutions.  The 
following  were  those  having  over  a  hundred  on  the  lists  : — 

Columbia  University       .         .         .         .         -737 

Cornell  University .         .         .         .         .         .     365 

Harvard  University         .         .         .         .         .243 

Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology     .         .     130 
Mount  Holyoke  College          .         .         .         .150 

Princeton  University      .         .         .         .         .105 

Smith  College 230 

Vassar  College 150 

Wellesley  College 188 

Williams  College 139 

Yale  University      .         .         .         .         .  117 

A  list  of  schools  sending  up  candidates  shows  that  im- 
portant public  high  schools  prepare  students,  especially 
those  in  New  York,  the  De  Witt  Clinton  High  School  for 
Boys  sending  ninety-seven,  the  Wadleigh  High  School  for 
Girls  sending  sixty-one,  and  the  Horace  Mann  School 
sending  sixty-seven ;  records  which  we  in  England  should 
think  very  good  for  an  examination  which  is  at  least  of 
matriculation  standard  and  in  some  subjects  is  higher. 
The  character  of  the  schools  will  be  thus  shown : — 

Number  of  Number  of 
Schools.    Candidates. 

Public  high  schools    .         .         .         .     331          M74 
Academies  and  endowed  schools          -103  508 

Private  schools  .         .         .         .         .278         1,240 

It  should  be  remembered  that,  though  a  good  many  of 
the  colleges  belonging  to  the  Board  have  done  away  with 


138       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

their  own  separate  examinations,  some  still  preserve  these ; 
Harvard  thus  in  1907  examined  1,651,  and  Yale  1,567 
candidates. 

The  Board  may  with  justice  boast  that  the  advantages 
they  hoped  for  in  1907  have  worked  out  practically — 

That  they  represent  a  co-operative  effort  on  the  part  of  a 
group  of  colleges,  no  one  of  which  thereby  surrenders  its 
individuality. 

That  they  represent  the  co-operation  of  colleges  and  second- 
ary schools  in  respect  to  a  matter  of  vital  importance  to  both. 

That  by  reason  of  their  uniformity  they  will  greatly  aid  the 
work  of  the  secondary  schools. 

They  have  always  set  their  questions  to  recognise  the  best 
methods  of  secondary  school  teaching ;  in  Dr.  Butler's 
words:  "To  control  the  examination  system  in  the  in- 
terests of  education  ".  Its  effect  has  been  to  fix  and  elevate 
standards  of  scholarship,  and  the  success  of  its  work  has 
undoubtedly  led  some  American  thinkers  to  recognise  the 
good  in  examinations. 

It  was  Mr.  Gladstone's  opinion  that  the  power  to  con- 
centrate one's  knowledge,  in  so  precise  and  definite  a  form 
that  could  be  reproduced  under  examination  conditions, 
was  a  quality  worth  having  and  training.  The  President 
of  Columbia  to-day  owns  himself  of  the  same  opinion. 

UNIVERSITY  OF  WISCONSIN. 

There  is  perhaps  no  university  in  the  United  States  so 
worthy  of  study  by  English  people  of  to-day  as  the  State 
University  of  Wisconsin,  at  Madison.  We  have  nothing 
like  it,  but  many  of  us  think  we  ought  to  have.  It  is 
truly  a  democratic  University,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is 
doing  first-rate  work  in  certain  departments,  and  good 
sound  work  in  others.  Since  the  University  is  the  creation 
of  the  State  and  is  supported  by  it  out  of  State  taxation,  the 


Colleges  and  Universities  139 

tuition  even  being  free  to  residents  in  the  State,  it  could 
not  exist  unless  it  were  what  the  people  of  Wisconsin  want. 

This  State  is  chiefly  agricultural.  It  has  mining  and 
lumbering  industries,  with  possibilities  of  manufacture 
through  its  water  power.  The  population,  two  and  a  half 
millions,  may  be  very  well  compared  with  that  of  Lanca- 
shire or  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire.  Racially  the  in- 
habitants come  from  some  of  the  best  stocks  that  have 
peopled  the  United  States;  not  only  those  of  New  and 
Old  England  and  Scotland,  but  Scandinavians  and  the 
German  Refugees  of  1848,  who  brought  with  them  a  belief 
in  liberty  and  in  education,  as  well  as  the  German  skill  in 
brewing  beer  that  has  made  Milwaukee  famous  all  over 
the  Union.  The  scenery  is  unusually  varied  and  beauti- 
ful. The  State  is  sometimes  called  the  Switzerland  of 
America,  though  it  has  no  high  mountains  and  its  snow 
comes  in  winter  only.  Its  air,  however,  at  least  at  Thanks- 
giving time,  is  finer  than  that  of  Switzerland. 

Agriculture  being  the  main  industry,  the  University  has 
a  strong  Agricultural  Department,  which,  as  the  professors 
there  say,  carries  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the  University 
on  its  back.  What  they  mean  is,  that  the  farmers  of  the 
State,  a  folk  as  a  rule  not  given  to  liberal  taxation  for 
educational  purposes,  recognise  so  fully  what  the  University 
does  for  them,  that  they  are  willing  to  pay  the  £125,000 
a  year  which  the  University  costs.1  It  is  a  small  sum  con- 
sidering that  there  is  a  body  of  over  300  professors,  lecturers 
and  instructors,  and  3,700  students,  of  whom  over  800  are 
women.  The  salaries  list  appears  in  the  Official  Report, 
and,  considering  the  cost  of  living  in  America,  it  would 
appear  that  the  Scots  phrase,  "  We  cultivate  learning  on 
a  little  oatmeal,"  must  be  true  for  a  good  many  of  the 
dons,  as  it  is  undoubtedly  for  many  of  the  students. 

Madison,  it  should  be  said,  is  the  State  capital  (nearly 
1  See  Appendix,  p.  329. 


140      Impressions  of  American  Education  in    1908 

30,000  inhabitants),  a  most  beautiful  town  among  hills 
and  trees,  between  two  lovely  lakes  with  names  as  lovely 
as  themselves,  Mendota  and  Monona.  The  brilliant  skies, 
the  sunshine,  even  in  November,  the  pretty  wooden  houses, 
the  stately  coloured  brick  or  white  marble  buildings  of 
the  University  form  a  whole  whose  charm  is,  in  its  own 
way,  as  great  as  that  of  Oxford.  After  the  usual  American 
fashion  the  University  buildings  stand  in  an  open  park-like 
space  or  Campus,  called  the  Hill,  and  look  across  a  mile 
of  grass  and  trees  to  the  dome  of  the  State  Capitol,  the 
centre  of  the  Government.  To  the  left,  the  blue  waters 
of  Mendota  sparkle  through  the  brown  foliage  of  the  oak- 
trees,  and  the  eye  passes  from  the  white  marble  library 
to  the  red  battlements  of  the  gymnasium,  and  round  from 
building  to  building  till  in  the  far  distance  rise  the  barns 
of  the  University  Farm,  where,  it  may  be  said,  is  an 
•excellent  creamery,  producing  butter  of  a  quality  not  often 
met  with  in  America,  and  run  at  a  profit  to  the  department 
by  the  Professor  of  Agriculture.  The  whole  scene  is  radiant 
with  that  joy  of  young  life  which  is  the  true  note  of  a 
university,  whether  on  the  Cam,  the  Isis,  the  Charles,  or 
the  shores  of  Mendota. 

In  that  invigorating  atmosphere  everybody  works  hard. 
One  could  not  do  it  at  Cambridge,  England.  Summer  ses- 
sions are  regularly  held  and  special  winter  courses  for 
farmers  themselves.  There  is  one  head  of  a  department 
who  in  twenty-five  years  had  only  four  summer  vacations 
and  seven  weeks  of  odd  holidays.  Lectures  begin  at  eight 
in  the  morning  and  go  on  all  day.  There  are  no  games 
or  Trumpington  Grind  in  the  afternoon,  except  on  Satur- 
days. The  writer  will  not  soon  forget,  on  her  first  week- 
day afternoon  there,  in  exquisite  autumn  weather,  going 
out  as  naturally  as  if  on  the  Huntingdon  Road  for  a  walk, 
and  expecting  to  see  a  good  deal  of  student  life  on  the 
way ;  but  no,  they  were  all  shut  up  in  the  libraries,  labora- 


Colleges  and  Universities  141 

tories,  or  recitation-rooms,  except  a  few  fortunate  men  in 
the  engineering  course,  who  were  doing  surveying  out-of- 
doors.  But,  in  spite  of  the  hard  work,  there  are  still  cakes 
and  ale,  or  rather  cakes  and  ice-cream,  in  Madison ;  indeed 
the  wonderful  things  to  eat,  the  produce  of  the  fertile  Missis- 
sippi Valley  and  of  the  trained  skill  of  the  American  house- 
wife that  were  hospitably  offered  there,  can  only  be  par- 
alleled from  the  kitchens  of  Trinity  at  Cambridge,  though, 
of  course,  they  were  quite  different  in  kind.  Among  the 
faculty  the  pleasant  social  life  of  the  University  went  on 
just  as  it  does  at  home,  and  when  the  curtains  were  drawn 
and  the  tea-table  (a  concession  to  English  visitors)  set, 
and  the  talk  ran  on  the  familiar  'Varsity  themes,  one  could 
hardly  believe  that  so  many  thousand  miles  of  stormy 
ocean  and  wide-stretching  plain  lay  between  Madison  and 
Manchester. 

Oddly  enough,  both  began  their  work  in  the  same  year, 
185 1,  when  Owens  College  opened  its  doors,  the  first  of 
the  new  local  colleges,  and  Wisconsin  began  with  its  first 
Class  in  North  Hall.  It  was  somewhat  disorganised  at  the 
time  of  the  war,  but  the  close  brought  a  new  inspiration 
and  growth  to  it.  It  was  reorganised  in  1886,  when  co- 
education was  provided  for,  though  the  work  of  the  women 
was,  in  the  first  instance,  kept  quite  separate.  It  has  grown 
steadily  and  fast  during  the  last  twenty-five  years.  The 
table  below,  which  is  taken  from  the  Report  of  the  Regents 
for  1906-7,  shows  the  different  departments  of  the  Univer- 
sity. The  graduate  school  is,  of  course,  a  later  growth, 
organised  in  1895.  It  now  is  well  attended  and  has  a 
good  standing.  Research  is  done  in  it,  not  only  in 
languages  and  science,  but  in  history,  political  economy, 
and  sociology. 

Agricultural  work  is  so  important  that  a  few  notes  on  it 
may  be  useful.  There  are  some  graduate  students ;  nearly 
200  undergraduates  for  the  regular  four  years'  course,  men, 


142       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


and  one  or  two  women,  who  intend  to  be  teachers  or 
specialists ;  short  courses  for  young  farmers  and  for  dairy- 
ing, roughly  three  months,  these  being  attended  by  about 

THE   ATTENDANCE   AT    THE    UNIVERSITY    OF    WISCONSIN. 

i.  Number  of  Students  During  the  Past  Ten  Years. 


College  of 

96-97 

97.98 

98-99 

99-00 

OO-OI 

01-02 

02-03 

03-04 

04-05 

05-06 

Letters  and  Science 
Mechanics  and  Engi 

872 

947 

995 

1,096 

1,137 

«,* 

1,232 

1,312 

1,476 

i,579 

neering     . 

218 

227 

242 

327 

411 

513 

585 

744 

804 

768 

Agriculture  . 

215 

277 

326 

440 

448 

461 

525 

526 

628 

Law 

216 

182 

214 

231 

266 

260 

226 

20  1 

183 

154 

Course  in  Pharmacy 
School  of  Music  . 
Summer  Session 

64 

61 
141 

55 

155 

199 

44 
191 

35 
169 
322 

ill 
350 

36 

172 
330 

33 
153 
300 

32 
209 

420 

Summer    School    for 

Artisans     and     Ap 

prentices  . 

— 

— 

— 

— 

_ 

45 

60 

70 

87 

92 

Summer  Dairy  Course 

— 

— 

__ 

__ 

_ 

16 

16 

Summer  School 

127 

117 

197 

__ 

_ 

__ 

_ 



_ 

— 

Library  School   . 

25 

16 

24 

36 

40 

37 

44 

3° 

59 

51 

Less  twice  enumerated 

So 

68 

64 

204 

193 

191 

205 

239 

236 

378 

Totals  . 

1,650 

1,767 

1,923 

2,422 

2,619 

12,777 

2,870 

3.I5I 

3.342 

3,571 

The  Summer  Session  of  1904  had  a  registration  of  395,  and  the  Library  School  of  the 
same  summer  was  attended  by  59  persons. 

2.  Number  of  the  Instructional  Force. 


96-97 

97-98 

98-99 

99-°° 

OO-OI 

OI-O2 

02-03 

03-04 

04-05 

05-06 

Professors  . 

49 

49 

52 

5« 

55 

* 

59 

71 

6q 

78 

Associate  Professors 

2 

2 

I 

2 

i 

I 

2 

I 

8 

9 

Assistant  Professors 
Instructors  . 

23 

23 

24 

26 

27 

28 

29 
31 

37 
37 

H 

35 
18 

40 
65 

38 
tf 

45 
113 

Assistants    . 

12 

14 

17 

23 

32 

29 

30 

43 

44 

47 

University  Fellows 

10 

IO 

IO 

IO 

H 

13 

13 

13 

13 

14 

Totals  . 

119 

125 

135 

147 

176 

180 

197 

233 

255 

292 

500 ;  and  lastly,  meetings  of  about  a  fortnight  during  the 
winter,  for  practical  farmers,  who  must  be  over  twenty-five 
years  of  age,  and  their  wives.  Some  hundreds  attend, 
several  being  over  sixty  years  of  age.  They  learn  to  know 
something  of  the  University,  they  attend  lectures  on  tech- 
nical subjects  and  practical  demonstrations  on  the  judging 


Colleges  and  Universities  143 

of  animals.  For  the  women  a  housekeeper's  conference 
is  provided,  with  lectures  and  demonstrations  on  food, 
gardening,  cooking,  house-furnishing,  etc.  There  is  no  fee 
for  residents  in  the  State  ;  the  farmers  and  their  wives 
only  have  to  pay  their  board  and  lodging,  which  costs 
about  £1  a  week. 

Another  side  of  the  department's  work  are  the  investi- 
gations, conducted  by  the  professors,  into  problems  con- 
cerned with  the  improvement  of  produce.  Work  has  been 
done  on  potatoes,  strawberries,  cranberries,  tobacco,  and 
the  sugar-beet.  The  results  have  been  distributed  through- 
out the  State  to  farmers,  by  the  sending  round  of  thousands 
of  bulletins.  It  is  admitted  that  the  increased  value  of 
produce,  through  the  application  of  these  researches  by 
the  farmers  to  the  practical  improvement  of  their  crops, 
has  saved  the  State  many  times  over  the  cost  of  the 
University.  The  Sociology  Department  is  also  seeking 
to  do  work  for  the  State. 

It  is  believed  that  here  is  a  great  field  where  the  University  can 
do  immeasurable  good.  Says  H.  H.  Jacobs,  at  the  head  of  the 
Settlement  at  Milwaukee  :  "  What  the  Agricultural  Department 
does  for  the  farmers,  the  Engineering  Department  for  manufac- 
ture, mining  and  transportation,  the  school  of  commerce  for 
business,  the  departments  of  economics  and  sociology  should 
do  for  the  great  human  interests  involved  in  such  questions  as 
factory  conditions,  child  labour,  tuberculosis  in  its  social  aspects, 
juvenile  offenders,  home  manufactures,  housing  conditions," 
etc.  (Regent's  Report.) 

A  summer  session  for  artisans  is  also  held,  when  the 
whole  equipment  of  the  College  of  Engineering,  under  the 
charge  of  members  of  the  regular  college  faculty,  is  de- 
voted to  improving  artisans  in  the  principles  and  practice 
of  their  business. 


144       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

There  is  provision  for  physical  exercise,  especially 
through  the  gymnasium  and  the  boating. 

The  armoury  and  men's  gymnasium  is  situated  on  the  lower 
campus,  on  the  shores  of  Lake  Mendota.  The  first  floor  con- 
tains the  locker-rooms,  bath-rooms,  gun-room  and  a  natatorium, 
20  by  80  feet.  On  the  main  floor  there  is  an  unobstructed 
hall,  165  by  98  feet.  The  third  floor  contains  the  base-ball 
cage,  six  hand-ball  courts,  two  running  tracks,  and  two  rifle 
ranges.  The  equipment  of  the  gymnasium  is  ample.  In  size, 
it  compares  with  any  in  the  West.  Full  opportunities  for  boat- 
ing, swimming,  etc.,  are  afforded,  as  the  lake  is  within  a  stone's- 
throw  of  the  building.  The  University  Boat  House  Association 
has  a  large  boat-house  near  the  gymnasium. 

The  women's  gymnasium  is  located  in  Chadbourne  Hall.  It 
is  two  stories  high,  has  a  floor  space  of  71  by  40  feet,  and  is 
well  provided  with  the  necessary  apparatus,  dressing-rooms 
and  lockers.  The  dressing-rooms  connect  with  shower-baths, 
supplied  with  hot  and  cold  water. 

There  is,  of  course,  a  football  team.  They  play  Minne- 
sota, the  neighbouring  State  University,  on  the  Saturday 
before  Thanksgiving,  in  the  fierce  and  dangerous  game 
which  America  has  developed.  In  1907  the  intense  ex- 
citement and  enthusiasm,  which  had  brought  thousands  of 
visitors  to  see  and  cheer  the  teams,  were  damped  down, 
since  the  result  was  a  draw ;  and  the  returning  crowds 
after  the  match  were  as  sad  as  if  some  terrible  accident 
had  happened. 

Social  life  is  very  vigorous,  especially  in  connection  with 
the  fraternities  and  sororities.  Some  students  live  in  fra- 
ternity houses,  which  are,  we  are  told,  very  pleasant  The 
Official  Report  on  the  women  students  states  : — 

To  those  who  can  afford  to  belong,  and  are  fortunate  enough 
to  be  invited  to  do  so,  the  sororities  furnish  delightful  homes. 
If  adequately  chaperoned,  this  grouping  of  congenial  girls,  in- 


Colleges  and  Universities  145 

terested  in  making  and  adorning  a  home  ;  in  letting  that  home 
radiate  its  hospitality  to  others,  and  in  the  mutual  watchfulness, 
helpfulness  and  responsibility  thus  engendered,  is  admirable. 

But  it  seems  to  your  committee  that  the  rules  of  the  sororities 
and  the  chaperon  selected  should  be  subject  to  the  approval 
of  the  faculty. 

We  understand,  however,  that  there  is  considerable 
difference  of  opinion  on  the  faculty  as  to  the  influence  of 
fraternities,  and  just  at  present  it  is  said  the  attention  social 
life  receives  is  tending  to  divert  students  from  their  work, 
and  the  following  rule  has  been  made : — 

Section  10.  No  parties  shall  be  held  on  other  days  than 
Fridays,  Saturdays  and  legal  holidays,  except  as  authorised  by 
the  Faculty  Social  Committee ;  all  parties  shall  close  on  or  be- 
fore midnight  except  by  special  permission  of  that  committee. 

HOUSE   RULES   OF   A    FRATERNITY. 

1.  There  shall  be  no  drinking  of  intoxicating  liquors  in  the 
house. 

2.  There  shall  be  no  gambling  in  the  house. 

3.  The  hours  from  2  to  5  on  all  days  except  Friday,  Satur- 
day and  Sunday,  and  from  7.30  on  all  days  except  Friday  and 
Saturday,  shall  be  study  hours,  and  no  loud  noises  such  as  play- 
ing the  piano,  etc.,  shall  be  allowed  during  these  hours. 

4.  There  shall  be  no  card-playing  on  Sunday. 

HOUSE   RULES   OF   A   SORORITY. 

1.  The  house  shall  be  quiet  from  8-12  A.M.,  2-5  P.M.,  7.30- 
9.30,  and  after  10  P.M. 

2.  Calling  hours  shall  be  Saturday  afternoon  ;  also  Wednes- 
day, Friday,  Saturday  and  Sunday  nights  until  10  o'clock. 

3.  The  girls  shall  not  be  out  after  10  o'clock  P.M.  without 
special  permission  from  the  chaperon. 

4.  The  girls  must  not  be  out  driving  after  9  P.M. 

10 


146      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

5 .  The  hour  for  returning  from  parties  shall  be  1 2  o'clock, 
except  such  parties  as  are  specially  permitted  by  the  faculty  to 
continue  until  a  later  hour. 

We  have  explained  in  the  previous  pages  the  Accrediting 
System  under  which  students  pass  freely  from  the  free 
high  schools  of  the  State  to  the  free  State  University; 
when  they  come  to  college  they  have  a  two  years'  course 
duly  prescribed,  in  which  English  receives  special  attention, 
a  necessary  duty,  when  so  many  of  Scandinavian  or  other 
foreign  extraction  attend.  In  the  third  and  fourth  years  a 
certain  amount  of  specialisation  takes  place.  Some  of  the 
professional  courses  are  naturally  longer  than  five  years. 
There  is  no  complete  medical  course.  Students  take 
what  we  should  call  the  preliminary  scientific  part  of  the 
work,  and  go  on  to  Chicago.  As  the  institution  is  govern- 
mental, there  is  a  department  of  military  science,  and  all 
able-bodied  male  students  in  the  first  and  second  years  have 
to  take  military  drill  There  is  a  University  Battalion  of 
Cadets. 

Though  no  one  of  our  new  English  Universities  resembles 
the  University  of  Wisconsin,  one  cannot  but  feel  that  its 
work  and  history  is  full  of  suggestion  to  those  who  believe 
in  this  new  development  of  higher  education  in  England. 

Can  these  universities  do  more  than  they  are  already  do- 
ing for  local  industries  ?  Can  they  strike  even  deeper  roots 
down  into  the  life  of  their  cities,  till  all  classes  understand 
and  believe  in  them,  as  the  farmers  believe  in  and  pay  for 
the  University  of  Wisconsin  ?  Above  all,  can  we  make 
-working-men  feel  that  the  city  university  is  for  them  and 
their  sons  and  daughters,  that  the  road  is  open  and  that 
the  industry  and  self-denial  which  in  America  take  the 
young  Scandinavian  from  a  little  Western  town  through 
the  high  school  and  the  college  will,  being  applied  here, 
bring  our  mill-hands  and  our  clerks  into  the  kingdom  of 
learning  ? 


Colleges  and  Universities  147 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY,  NEW  YORK. 

If  we  take  Wisconsin  as  a  type  of  the  State  University, 
Columbia  may  stand  as  a  type  of  the  other  class — the 
colleges  of  colonial  foundation,  modelled  on  those  of 
England,  and  still  independent  of  the  State  as  are  our 
English  Universities.  Harvard,  Yale,  and  Princeton  are 
well  known  in  England,  if  only  through  their  achievements 
in  athletics  and  the  part  their  students  play  in  American 
fiction.  Columbia  is  more  suited  for  special  description 
here  for  three  reasons :  (i)  It  has  developed  in  the  most 
remarkable  way  during  the  last  fifteen  or  twenty  years 
under  the  influence  of  Presidents  Low  and  Butler ;  it  has 
added  to  the  dignity  of  age  the  energy,  the  material  wealth, 
and  the  intellectual  distinction  of  its  faculty  which  make  it 
a  fitting  University  for  what  is  the  real  capital  of  the 
United  States.  The  change  is  symbolised  by  its  removal 
up  town  to  Morningside  Heights,  where  it  has  entered  upon 
a  new  life.  (2)  It  is  in  a  sense  co-educational.  Women 
are  admitted  to  its  degrees  and  to  its  professional  schools, 
and  attend  Teachers'  Colleges  in  large  numbers.  Under- 
graduate women  belong  to  Barnard  College,  one  of  the  de- 
partments of  the  University,  originally  a  separate  institu- 
tion, now  taken  over.  (3)  Columbia  is  a  type  of  the  great 
urban  University — possibly  in  some  respects  the  finest  ex- 
ample in  the  English-speaking  world.  There  is  in  England 
no  exact  analogue ;  London  University  is  the  natural  paral- 
lel, but  this  is  for  England  new,  while  Columbia  is  for 
America  old,  and  London  as  yet,  owing  to  its  peculiar 
federal  constitution,  its  two  classes  of  students — internal 
and  external — and  the  scattering  of  its  constituent  colleges 
over  an  area  from  Staines  to  Woolwich,  cannot  have  the 
unity  which  Columbia,  one  in  herself,  possesses.  Then,  too, 
she  holds  a  much  larger  place  relatively  in  New  York  life 

10  * 


148       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

than  the  University  can  in  London.  In  this  the  English 
analogues  are  rather  found  in  the  urban  Universities  of 
Manchester,  Birmingham,  and  Liverpool ;  in  some  ways,  in- 
deed, Liverpool,  though  young  and  still  small,  is  more  like 
Columbia  than  anything  we  have.  She  is  less  conserva- 
tive than  some  of  her  older  English  sisters;  she  has, 
like  Columbia,  the  support  and  enthusiasm  of  the  rich 
citizens  in  this  generation,  and  she  unites  all  sections  of 
the  population  in  the  movement  to  make  her  worthy  of 
the  wealthy  city  whose  motto  is  "  Deus  nobis  haec  otia 
fecit". 

But  though  we  may  compare  and  contrast  we  shall  find 
no  true  analogy  ;  Columbia  is  after  all  herself ;  her  symbol 
the  golden  statue,  on  the  steps  of  the  great  Library,  that, 
stately,  inspiring  and  beautiful,  looks  down  over  the  city  at 
her  feet  far  away  out  to  sea. 

The  buildings,  indeed,  are  characteristically  urban,  and 
while  they  cannot  have  the  charm  of  Madison  or  Oxford 
they  have  a  massive  dignity,  an  enduring  and  costly  strength 
worthy  of  the  organism  that  dwells  there.  The  University 
occupies  thirty-five  buildings;  among  others  a  building 
for  Domestic  Science  and  Art  is  being  added ;  the  grounds 
cover  34  acres,  in  itself  no  mean  endowment,  in  one  of  the 
best  residential  quarters  of  Manhattan  Island.  This  area 
occupies  five  blocks,  between  n6th  Street  and  I2ist 
Street,  northwards,  and  from  Amsterdam  Avenue  to 
Broadway,  east  and  west.  There  are  open  spaces  for 
games,  grassy  lawns,  and  fine  trees.  The  Library  is  the 
centre  of  the  group  of  buildings,  and  contains  also  in  the 
President's  Office  the  heart  and  brain  of  the  whole  organ- 
ism. This  building  is  appropriately  classic  in  style ;  it  has 
a  huge  dome  and  a  great  portico  with  Ionic  columns  at  the 
head  of  long  flights  of  stairs.  Its  material,  of  course,  is 
white  marble,  and  the  whole  effect  is  stately  and  splendid 
in  the  highest  degree.  It  is  a  modern  Acropolis  and  Propy- 


Colleges  and  Universities  149 

lea.  The  buildings  around  are  each  allotted  to  some  de- 
partment. They  include  dormitories  (hostels)  for  men  and 
for  women,  and  a  large  Chapel — a  memorial  gift.  Bar- 
nard stands  west  on  Broadway,  the  Teachers'  College  and 
the  Horace  Mann  University  School  at  the  north  side,  on 
i2Oth  Street,  so  that  the  pupils  at  the  midday  recess  pour 
out  and  walk  up  and  down  in  what  is,  though  a  public 
thoroughfare,  almost  a  University  avenue. 

For  the  history  of  Columbia  we  may  quote  from  the 
official  announcement : — 

Columbia  University  is  the  result  of  an  organic  development 
from  within,  and  of  successive  additions  from  without,  extending 
over  a  period  of  more  than  150  years.  The  oldest  part  of  the 
University,  and  in  a  sense  the  mother  of  all  the  rest,  is  Columbia 
College,  which  was  established,  by  charter  of  King  George 
II.  of  England,  dated  3151  October,  1754,  on  the  model  of 
colleges  already  existing  in  England  and  the  North  American 
Colonies,  and  was  opened  for  the  instruction  of  students  in  the 
same  year.  The  institution  was  named  King's  College.  The 
Revolutionary  War  interrupted  its  active  work;  but  in  1784  it 
was  reopened  under  the  name  of  Columbia  College. 

The  organisation  is  worth  giving  indeed  in  some  detail, 
at  all  events  in  part,  since  Columbia  has  reached  what  may 
prove  to  be  a  permanent  solution  of  the  problem  of  the 
American  College  (see  above,  p.  18).  Its  entrance  re- 
quirements, as  we  have  said,  are  the  usual  fifteen  units, 
called  points  there,  and  drawn  from  a  list,  which  may  also 
be  quoted : — 

Columbia  University  recognises  the  following  examination 
subjects,  which  may  be  offered  for  admission  to  one  or  more 
of  the  colleges  and  schools  included  in  the  University,  each  sub- 
ject counting  for  a  specific  number  of  points  as  indicated  be- 
low:— 


150      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


English 
Elementary 


Botany 
Chemistry 
Drawing 
Harmony 


ry  French 

2 

German 

2 

Greek 

3 

History 

2 

Italian 

2 

Latin 

4 

Mathematics 

3 

Physics 

i 

Spanish 

2 

. 

I 

r 

I 

. 

I 

.       . 

I 

Musical  Appreciation 

Musical  Performance 

Physiography 

Shopwork     . 

Zoology 

Intermediate  French 
„  German 

Advanced  English 
Greek 
History 
Latin 

Mathematics 
Physics 


For  a  statement  as  to  the  combinations  of  subjects  which 
may  be  offered  by  candidates  for  admission  to  the  several  col- 
leges and  schools,  see  pages  15-21  Official  Calendar. 

As  at  Harvard  the  word  "  College "  is  applied  to  that 
department  which  gives  a  general  liberal  education,  but, 
as  will  be  seen,  Columbia  allows  this  to  melt  into  the  pro- 
fessional departments  and  so  to  shorten  the  years  of  study. 

"  The  aim  and  purpose  of  Columbia  College,  as  a  College 
within  a  University  and  the  lineal  descendant  of  King's 
College,  is  to  give  to  its  students  an  education  which  shall 
be  liberal  in  the  highest  sense,  and  thus  of  the  greatest  value 
to  those  whose  period  of  study  ends  with  the  attainment 
of  the  bachelor's  degree,  and  which  furthermore,  even  if  the 
curriculum  be  not  completed,  shall  form  the  best  possible 
preparation  for  the  study  of  a  profession.  The  make-up 
of  the  Faculty  of  the  College  will  be  found  on  page  2. 
Instruction  is  given  to  students  of  the  College  by  the  de- 
partments represented  in  the  faculty,  also  by  members  of 
the  departments  of  Civil  Engineering,  Engineering  Draft- 
ing, Geography,  Music,  Physiology  and  Public  Law  ;  and, 
as  explained  below  (pp.  16-17)  in  greater  detail,  certain 
courses  in  the  Schools  of  Applied  Science,  Law  and  Medi- 
cine, in  Teachers'  College,  and  under  the  Faculties  of 
Political  Science,  Philosophy,  Pure  Science,  and  Fine  Arts 


Colleges  and  Universities  151 

are  open   to  students  of  Columbia  College  and  may  be 
offered  in  fulfilment  of  the  requirements  for  its  degrees. 

"  The  College  is  thus  independent,  and  yet  closely  arti- 
culated with  the  other  parts  of  the  University.  A  student, 
during  his  residence  at  the  College  as  a  candidate  for  the 
baccalaureate  degree,  while  still  securing  an  education  fully 
entitled  to  be  called  liberal,  may  begin  to  prepare  himself 
for  the  specialisation  which  is  to  follow  his  graduation. 
After  the  completion  of  a  certain  amount  of  work  in  the 
College  he  may,  without  ceasing  to  be  a  student  of  the 
College,  elect  some  of  the  courses  offered  in  the  professional 
schools,  and  these  may  be  offered  toward  both  a  collegiate 
and  a  professional  degree,  so  that  he  may  thus  complete 
his  collegiate  and  his  professional  studies  in  six  years." 

"  Briefly  stated,  the  principle  of  the  present  Programme 
of  Studies  is  this : — 

"  The  unit  of  reckoning  is  the  point,  representing  one  hour 
a  week  for  one  half-year.  For  either  degree  1 24  points 
must  be  made.  All  students  must  make  ten  points  in 
English,  twelve  in  French  or  German,  six  in  History,  six 
in  Mathematics,  six  in  Philosophy,  four  in  Physical  Educa- 
tion, and  fourteen  in  Natural  Science;  in  all  sixty-four. 
Candidates  for  the  Degree  of  A.B.  must  make  also  at  least 
six  points  in  Latin  or  Greek,  and  candidates  for  the  Degree 
of  B.S.  at  least  six  additional  points  in  Natural  Science. 
The  passing  of  examinations  at  entrance  in  some  of  these 
subjects  will  exempt  the  student  from  taking  them  in  Col- 
lege. The  remaining  points  necessary  for  the  degree  are 
to  be  made  by  election. 

"  (i)  Besides  the  Degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts,  that  of 
Bachelor  of  Science  is  given,  the  latter  for  the  completion 
of  a  course  including  a  larger  proportion  of  Natural  Science, 
but  no  Latin. 


152       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

"  (2)  While  the  acquisition  of  either  degree  depends,  as 
hitherto,  upon  the  completion  of  a  certain  number  of  points ' 
of  work,  partly  prescribed  and  partly  elective,  much  greater 
flexibility  and  adaptability  to  the  needs  of  the  individual 
student  are  gained  by  the  abandonment  of  the  four  years' 
period  as  the  normal  time  of  study,  and  by  making  the  half- 
year,  instead  of  the  year,  the  unit  of  measurement,  so  that 
students  may  enter  in  February  as  well  as  in  September 
and  be  graduated  at  the  end  of  either  half-year. 

"  (3)  The  period  of  study  may  be  shortened  by  the  win- 
ning of  high  rank  in  several  courses  at  once." 

The  tuition  fee  is  $i  50  =  £30 ;  the  average  total  cost, 
including  residence,  is  $700  =  £140,  but  £i  10  will  serve 
with  economy.  New  York,  it  must  be  remembered,  is  per- 
haps the  most  expensive  city  in  the  world  for  living. 
Over  twenty  competitive  scholarships  are  given,  and  a 
number  of  general  scholarships  are  awarded  on  fitness  and 
need.  There  is  a  Committee  on  Employment  for  Students 
which  helps  them  to  find  work,  "  for  their  partial  or  com- 
plete support,  or,  if  possible,  to  extend  assistance  to  them 
in  other  ways.  Some  of  the  openings  available  are : 
private  tutoring,  translating,  addressing,  copying  of  various 
sorts,  teaching  in  evening  schools,  stenography  and  type- 
writing. During  the  year  1905-6  the  student  earnings 
reported  to  the  Committee  amounted  to  $104,240.39. 
Communications  should  be  addressed  to  the  Committee." 

A  medical  visitor  who  charges  fixed  fees  is  appointed  by 
the  University — a  boon  to  poor  students  away  from  home. 
University  Commons  at  fixed  rates  are  also  available. 

Columbia  preserves  the  English  tradition  of  chapel 
service.  Service,  at  which  attendance  is  voluntary,  is  held 
every  week-day  except  Saturday,  at  noon,  the  period  from 
12  to  12.20  being  set  apart  by  the  University  for  religious 
exercises ;  and  on  Sunday  afternoons  at  4  P.M.  There  are 
also  frequent  organ  recitals  in  the  Chapel. 


Colleges  and  Universities  153 

To  this  is  added  the  American  tradition  of  a  building 
which  shall  serve  as  a  home  of  the  religious,  philanthropic 
and  social  organisations  and  interests  of  students.  It  is 
open  freely  all  day  from  8.30  A.M.  to  10  P.M. 

The  building  may  not  be  used  for  distinctly  dogmatic  or 
denominational  religious  teaching.  All  organisations,  the  object" 
of  which  is  to  promote  the  religious  and  philanthropic  life  of 
their  student  members  and  of  the  student  body  at  large,  have 
the  privilege  of  holding  their  meetings  in  this  building.  While 
the  social  purposes  of  the  hall  are  necessarily  subordinated  to 
the  other  uses  of  the  building,  the  secretary  desires  to  promote 
the  same  type  of  informal  personal  and  \  social  intercourse  that 
prevails  in  a  good  club. 

Provision  for  the  regular  meetings  of  student  organisations  is 
made,  on  a  day-and-hour  schedule,  without  exclusive  use  of 
any  of  the  rooms,  in  the  following  order :  societies  the  purpose 
of  which  is  (i)  primarily  religious ;  (2)  primarily  philanthropic  ; 
(3)  primarily  literary ;  and  (4)  miscellaneous  student  organisa- 
tions, y 

There  seems  to  be,  for  an  urban  University,  a  good  deal 
of  social  life  and  an  unusual  amount,  for  a  city,  of  athletics 
among  the  students  generally.  The  various  activities  of 
undergraduate  life,  the  educative  force  of  constant  as- 
sociation with  one's  fellows,  are  present  in  full  measure  at 
Columbia ;  and  the  existence  of  residence  halls  for  students 
ensures  the  fuller  development  and  wider  extension  of 
these  helpful  influences.  In  the  session  1906-7  the  number 
of  officers  of  instruction  was  562  and  of  students  4,611. 
The  University,  however,  does  not  limit  itself  to  regular 
formal  work  in  the  ordinary  terms.  It  has  a  large  Ex- 
tension Department,  which  affords  to  the  persons  who  can- 
not become  regular  students — especially  to  teachers — 
opportunities  of  instruction  and  study  which  count  towards 
a  diploma  or  degree  on  the  American  system  of  units. 


154      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

Many  of  the  collegiate  courses  are  repeated  at  hours  when 
persons  earning  their  living  can  attend :  the  late  after- 
noons, the  evenings  and  Saturday  mornings.  This  Ex- 
tension Session  lasts  for  thirty  weeks  during  the  winter. 
The  amount  of  work  done  may  be  seen  from  the  fact  that 
the  time-table  for  Wednesday  contains  thirty-six  courses 
and  for  Saturday  fifty-two.  Besides  ordinary  academic 
studies  there  appear  lectures  and  classes  on  Biblical  Liter- 
ature, methods  of  Sunday-school  teaching,  and  manual 
arts  of  various  kinds.  This  system  is  worthy  of  study  by 
those  who  wish  the  University  of  Manchester  to  establish 
a  system  of  evening  classes  leading  to  degrees. 

A  Summer  Session  is  also  held  for  six  weeks  in  July 
and  August.  It  is  intended  for  three  classes  of  students  : 
(I)  Those  who  wish  to  prepare  for  matriculation.  (2) 
Matriculated  students  who  wish  to  shorten  their  years  at 
College  by  doing  extra  work  or  who  have  to  make  up 
deficiencies.  (3)  Teachers  and  others  engaged  in  edu- 
cation who  seek  further  liberal  or  professional  educa- 
tion. Advanced  instruction  and  opportunities  for  research 
are  afforded.  There  are  also  many  classes  in  Physical 
Education,  Manual  Training  and  Domestic  Science  and 
Art. 

All  this  organisation,  however,  is  not  mere  mechanical 
routine,  but  is  the  expression  of  vigorous  life.  Columbia 
to-day  is  a  great  leader  in  American  education,  and  her 
voice  is  a  signal  and  a  rallying  cry  in  all  movements  for 
reform  ;  she  is  the  arbiter  of  standards,  and  her  approval 
is  warrant  enough.  Would  that  in  this  generation  we  in 
England  could  strengthen  and  enrich  our  urban  Universities, 
so  that  they  might  achieve  for  our  cities  and  for  the 
Empire  what  Columbia  does  not  only  for  New  York  but 
for  the  whole  United  States !  As  Nicholas  Murray  Butler, 
her  president  and  her  soul,  said  in  his  inaugural  address,  of 
the  ideal  university : — 


Colleges  and  Universities  155 

It  keeps  step  with  the  march  of  progress,  widens  its  sym- 
pathies with  growing  knowledge,  and  among  a  democratic 
people  seeks  only  to  instruct,  to  uplift  and  to  serve,  in  order 
that  the  cause  of  religion  and  learning,  and  of  human  freedom 
and  opportunity,  may  be  continually  advanced  from  century  to. 
century  and  from  age  to  age. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

METHOD. 

There  are  nine  and  sixty  ways  of  constructing  tribal  lays, 
And  every  single  one  of  them  is  right. — KIPLING. 

Ama,  et  fac  quid  vis. — AUGUSTINE. 

No  impression  of  American  education  remains  more  vivid 
to  the  English  acting  teacher  than  that  of  the  difference 
of  method;  a  difference  embodied  in  the  phrase  "recita- 
tion "  used  where  we  say  lesson.  Class-work  is  an  entirely 
different  thing  in  America,  and  this  difference  makes  one 
think,  question  one's  own  method,  and  at  the  same  time 
question  the  value  of  the  time-honoured  recitation  method 
of  America.  In  Switzerland,  France,  or  Germany  there  is 
no  such  marked  difference ;  indeed  the  standard  English 
system  of  exposition  by  the  teacher,  questioning  the  pupil, 
and  building  up  new  knowledge  in  class  first,  is  called  in 
America  the  German  oral  method. 

Recitation  is  indeed  an  accurate  description  of  what  one 
hears,  sitting  in  an  American  classroom ;  the  pupil  stands 
up  and  recites  what  he  has  learnt,  whether  from  the 
standard  text-book  or  from  other  sources.  The  teacher 
may  question  some  statement  in  order  to  make  sure  that 
the  pupil  understands  what  he  has  said,  other  pupils  will 
also  question  it.  A  girl  will  put  up  her  hand  and  (the  teacher 
giving  permission  by  looking  in  her  direction)  will  say, 

"  But  I  thought  that  I  read  in "  and  will  proceed  to 

give  some  other  view  of  the  subject.  A  general  discussion 
will  follow  which  the  teacher  will  not  authoritatively  close 

156 


Method  157 

by  giving  her  correct  opinion ;  she  will  pass  on  to  another 
part  of  the  subject  and  ask  another  pupil  to  recite  what 
he  or  she  has  learnt  about  it.  If  the  reciter  makes  an 
error  the  teacher  will  call  upon  another  pupil  to  correct  it ; 
very  rarely  does  the  teacher  make  a  correction  herself, 
and  still  more  rarely  does  she  express  her  opinion.  We 
were  not  struck  by  the  good  English  or  excellence  of  oral  i 
composition  which  we  heard.  The  American  boys  and 
girls  did  not  do  any  better  in  this  respect  than  the  English 
girls  we  know.  One  can  hardly  expect  fluent,  elegant 
oral  descriptions  and  accounts  except  from  practised 
speakers.  With  a  class  of  thirty  or  forty  and  a  lesson  period 
of  forty-five  minutes  obviously  not  all  in  the  class  recite ; 
quite  half  may  take  no  share  except  as  listeners.  The 
presumption  is  that  they  have  learnt  up  their  work,  that 
they  are  interested  in  listening  to  what  others  say  about 
it ;  their  turn  will  come  next  day,  and  in  any  case  it  is  to 
their  interest  to  follow  carefully  what  goes  on. 

Three  criticisms  must  occur  to  even  a  sympathetic  Eng- 
lish teacher :  first,  the  possibility  of  what  in  England  would 
be  a  probable  waste  of  time  to  the  listeners.  Americans 
say  that  these,  though  they  often  look  indifferent  and  inat- 
tentive, are  really  attending ;  they  are  used  to  the  method 
and  they  play  the  game,  so  to  speak,  by  listening  attentively 
as  well  as  by  reciting  readily  when  their  turn  comes. 
Second,  the  whole  thing  is  very  dull  and  slow ;  each  pupil 
speaks  very  slowly,  with  very  little  grace  of  delivery  or 
beauty  of  language,  such  as  might  be  expected  from  the 
teacher,  and  nothing  like  the  same  amount  of  ground  is 
covered  as  is  the  case  in  a  lesson  on  the  oral  method. 
With  the  recitation  method  in  England  we  should  not 
arouse  sufficient  interest  to  get  the  best  out  of  our  pupils  ; 
we  could  not  get  through  the  work  we  have  to  do  in  the 
time,  nor  would  English  boys  and  girls  be  sufficiently 
quick  and  clever  to  understand  the  difficulties  in  geometry, 


158       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

for  example,  or  in  Latin  or  French  grammar,  unless  they 
had  clear  and  skilful  explanations  from  the  teacher,  who 
presumably  understands  the  art  of  making  things  clear. 
Americans  would  probably  say  that  their  students  are 
quick  enough  and  earnest  enough  to  make  progress  with- 
out this  careful  exposition  and  without  this  atmosphere  of 
interest  and  intellectual  stimulus,  and  there  is  probably 
some  truth  in  the  reply.  Our  pupils  too  often  do  not 
want  to  work,  and  their  minds  do  move  more  slowly.  We 
have  been  obliged  to  find  ways  of  making  class-work  at- 
tractive, either  by  intellectual  stimulus  and  interest,  or  by 
rewards  and  punishments,  since  we  have  not  that  strong 
outside  belief  in  education  which  makes  the  task  of  the 
American  teacher  much  more  easy.  It  is  also  true  that 
the  examination  demand  has  forced  us  to  explain  clearly 
to  the  duller  pupils  in  the  class  difficulties  which  the 
cleverer  ones  could  see  through  for  themselves.  Probably 
here  Americans  are  right  and  we  are  wrong;  we  make 
the  work  too  easy  by,  as  it  were,  peptonising  the  lesson 
material,  before  giving  it  to  the  hungry  sheep  who  look  up 
to  us  to  be  fed.  Our  aim  has  been  to  help  them  to 
assimilate  the  knowledge  required,  not  to  develop  in  them 
the  power  to  grapple  with  new  material.  This  power  the 
American  recitation  system  undoubtedly  develops,  and  this 
is  one  of  its  great  merits. 

Our  third  criticism  is  that  the  teacher  appears  to  do  too 
little  ;  her  share  in  the  lesson  is  at  a  minimum  ;  the  new 
ideas  do  not  come  from  her,  her  influence  is  indirect 
Here,  again,  the  American  would  say,  so  much  the  better. 
The  democratic  ideal  is  undoubtedly  one  cause  for  the 
existence  and  the  popularity  of  the  recitation  method.  The 
teacher  and  the  pupils  are  very  much  on  a  level.  She  is 
not  teaching  them ;  she  acts  rather  as  chairman  of  a 
meeting,  the  object  of  which  is  to  ascertain  whether  they 
have  studied  for  themselves  in  a  text-book,  and  what 


Method  159 

they  think  about  the  material  they  have  been  studying. 
Clearly,  then,  the  master  is  the  text-book,  and  here  we 
strike  on  a  vital  peculiarity  of  American  education.  Its 
aim  has  been  intellectually  the  mastery  of  books ;  with  us 
education  has  always  been  very  much  more,  always  and 
everywhere,  a  personal  relation.  The  children  learn  from 
the  master  or  mistress  with  or  without  the  aid  of  a  book. 

In  a  good  school  in  England  we  should  say  that  the 
teacher  knew  or  ought  to  know  more  than  the  text-book. 
In  any  case  we  feel,  rather  than  judge,  that  the  child  can 
learn  more  from  the  living  voice  of  the  teacher  than  from 
any  book.  The  German  oral  method  also  considers  that 
the  teacher  should  be  the  centre  and  source  through  which 
more  knowledge  is  won.  The  difference  can  perhaps  best 
be  stated  by  saying  that  in  the  one  case  new  material  is 
grappled  with  first  in  class  by  the  teacher  and  pupil  to- 
gether, which  is  on  the  whole  we  think  the  English  and 
German  ideal ;  in  the  other  the  pupil,  out  of  school,  studies 
the  new  material  first  in  the  text-book  and  goes  over  it  in 
class  afterwards  with  the  teacher.  The  great  merit  of  the 
American  method  is  clearly  that  the  pupil  works  for  him- 
self and  does  not  depend  on  the  teacher.  This  need  not 
be  absent  from  the  English  method — in  all  our  best  teach- 
ing it  is  a  cardinal  feature — but  the  chief  advantage  of  the 
English  method  at  its  best  is  that  the  child  is  led  along 
according  to  a  plan,  which  it  is  the  teacher's  work  to  see 
accomplished.  She  may  consciously  and  definitely  use  the 
Herbartian  steps  in  making  her  plan,  whether  for  a  single 
lesson  or  a  section  of  several  lessons,  or  she  may  only 
instinctively  prepare  and  present  and  generalise  and 
apply.  But  the  plan  is  there,  as  it  is  indeed  in  all  first- 
rate  teaching. 

There  is,  however,  another  great  merit  in  American  eyes 
of  the  recitation  method  which  has  been  stated  very  de- 
finitely by  Dr.  W.  T.  Harris ;  it  is  that  of  the  co-operation 


160       Impressions  ot  American  Education  in    1908 

of  pupils  "  to  bring  out  the  details  of  the  lesson  in  a  variety 
of  different  aspects,  each  pupil  giving  the  result  of  his  own 
study,  and  learning  from  the  others  their  results  ".  In  his 
opinion  the  teacher  must  call  out  from  other  members  of 
the  class  what  is  needed  to  correct  the  one-sided  character 
of  the  recitation  of  the  first  pupil ;  thus  ideas  not  even  in 
the  teacher's  mind  will  be  brought  out.  Dr.  Harris  also 
thinks  that  the  pupil  can  understand  better  the  statement 
of  an  idea  in  a  fellow-pupil's  own  words  than  in  the 
teacher's  words;  he  can  understand  better,  e.g.,  a  pupil's 
explanation  of  a  difficulty  in  geometry  than  he  can  the 
teacher's.  There  is  undoubtedly  much  in  this  view.  At 
the  same  time  all  really  good  English  oral  teaching  attains 
both  ends.  It  is  considered  in  America  that  the  recitation 
stimulates  the  pupil  to  study  the  new  material  better ;  he 
has  been  shown  what  others  have  found  in  the  text-book, 
and  he  is  roused  to  see  what  he  can  do  for  the  next  day. 
"  Self-activity,  power  for  independent  research,  acute, 
critical  insight — how  can  these  be  obtained  apart  from 
contact  with  one's  fellow-men  striving  toward  the  same 
goal  ?  " l  The  ideal,  then,  of  the  American  recitation  is  the 
combination  of  the  work  of  all  the  members  of  the  class 
under  the  guidance  of  the  teacher,  who  should  do  as  little 
as  possible  except  question  and  guide ;  the  result  will  be 
"a  vigorous  training  and  critical  alertness,"  and  also — 
which  will  not  have  occurred  to  an  English  teacher — a 
uniformity  of  view. 

Dr.  Harris  thinks  that  a  merit  of  the  recitation  is  that 
the  pupil  has  learnt  most  from  his  fellow-pupila  We 
should  hardly  think  this  a  merit  without  more  qualification 
of  a  practical  kind  than  it  receives  at  the  hands  of  Ameri- 
can teachers.  If  a  boy  is  not  to  have  his  own  view,  or 
has  no  view  of  his  own,  he  ought  at  least  to  know  the 

1  Paper  read  before  the  American  Institute  of  Instruction,  i2th  July, 
1906. 


Method  161 

teacher's  view.  It  is,  excepting  in  the  case  of  the  very  i 
cleverest  of  children,  more  than  they  can  manage,  to  get 
the  various  spontaneous  contributions  of  members  of  the 
class  into  form,  and  so  to  obtain  a  sort  of  composite 
photograph  of  the  average  of  the  class.  We  should  prob- 
ably say  that  the  teacher's  view,  arrived  at  after  the  free 
interchange  of  opinion  for  which  good  oral  method  leaves 
ample  scope,  should  be  expressed.  It  may  and  should  fit 
the  case  better,  and  so  convey  a  view  which  is  actually 
more  correct  than  can  be  got  from  the  text-book,  taking 
circumstances  into  account.  The  rise  of  the  method  can 
be  explained  from  historical  causes ;  in  the  old  ungraded 
rural  school  of  America,  meeting  perhaps  only  for  a  few 
months  in  the  year,  taught,  it  may  be,  by  a  woman  in  the 
summer,  and  a  man  in  the  winter,  there  could  be  no 
classification  or  organisation.  Each  pupil  worked  through 
an  authorised  text-book,  much  as  in  the  old  Scottish  rural 
school,  when  a  ploughman  might  come  back  for  a  couple 
of  months  to  rub  up  his  arithmetic  or  English  in  the  book 
he  did  not  finish  before  leaving  school.  The  teacher 
went  round  and  helped  individual  pupils  over  difficulties, 
or  heard  them  "  recite "  the  lesson  they  had  each  learnt, 
while  the  others  went  on  with  their  own  tasks.  Then 
when  the  schools  came  to  be  graded,  a  number  of  pupils 
at  about  the  same  stage  could  recite  together  out  of  the 
book,  and  so  the  recitation  method  developed,  evolved 
by  the  American  genius  for  invention  to  fit  the  necessities 
of  the  position.  Among  these  conditions  was  the  absence 
of  a  body  of  experienced  and  skilled  teachers ;  much  of 
the  work  was  done  by  all  sorts  of  people,  many  with  very 
scanty  qualifications,  who  would  "  teach  school "  for  a  few 
months  to  earn  enough  to  go  on  with  some  other  occupa- 
tion. Such  people  could  not  be  in  the  true  sense  of  the 
word  teachers;  they  could  "conduct  recitations"  and 
engage  in  the  friendly  questioning  and  discussion  as  an 

ii 


1 62       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

equal,  which  the  American  method  implies.  When  first- 
rate,  highly  qualified,  skilled  teachers  come  to  play  on  this 
instrument  they  bring  forth  from  it  a  wonderful  result. 

The  writer  was  fortunate  enough  to  see  some  very  fine 
work  by  a  woman  teacher,  brilliant,  systematised,  full  of 
interest  and  fire,  the  pupils  really  taking  part  and  bringing 
their  material  which  the  teacher  skilfully  percussed  so  that 
it  kindled  Indeed  the  recitation  method  at  its  best  and 
our  own  oral  method  are  almost  identical  in  effect ;  and 
far  excel  as  educational  instruments  anything  that  can  be 
attained  by  lectures.  But  how  rarely  is  it  seen  at  its  best ! 
At  its  worst,  of  course,  it  becomes  mere  memoriter  repeti- 
tion out  of  the  text-book  with  very  little  intelligence  any- 
where; any  teacher  would  do  for  this  who  could  keep 
order. 

American  teachers  are  required  by  this  method  where 
it  is  not  mere  memoriter  work  to  do  a  great  deal  of  pre- 
paration ;  they  must  be  familiar  not  only  with  the  subject, 
as  we  are,  but  with  what  all  the  leading  text-books  say 
about  it.  Some  have  to  spend  hours  in  the  public  library 
looking  up  every  possible  reference  that  a  pupil  might 
make  in  class. 

Whatever  we  may  feel  to  be  its  drawbacks  many  of  us 
have  much  to  learn  from  the  recitation  method ;  after  all, 
the  pupil  ought  to  do  the  work  and  be  self-dependent,  and 
learn  to  use  books  and  speak  out  and  to  maintain  his  or 
her  own  view  in  the  class.  The  use  of  the  library  to 
supplement  the  text-book  is  also  a  great  merit  in  the 
recitation  method,  but  here  we  cannot  do  much  except 
incidentally  unless  we  can  reduce  the  number  of  subjects 
studied  at  one  time.  If  our  pupils  carried,  as  they  say, 
only  four  or  five  subjects  at  once,  with  a  lesson  every  day, 
or  nearly  every  day,  in  each,  we  could  use  the  school 
library,  encourage  investigation  by  the  pupils,  and  reduce 
our  written  work,  following  some  of  the  best  characteristics 


Method  163 

of  the  American  method.  In  all  the  various  reform  move- 
ments in  American  education,  which  is  so  marked  to-day, 
there  is,  so  far  as  we  know,  none  in  the  direction  of  the 
lecture  method;  reform  is  desired,  but  it  has  not  taken 
this  shape. 

For  some  years  past  the  laboratory  method  has  been 
pursued,  not  only  in  science,  where  it  is  the  only  possible 
one,  but  in  history.  It  resembles  the  recitation  method 
in  depending  on  individual  work,  where  each  pupil  trusts 
his  own  results,  and  where  the  collective  work  of  the 
class  is  in  the  end  gathered  up  together.  In  American 
high  schools  science  was  at  first  learnt  out  of  books,  and 
to  some  extent  this  is  still  done,  especially  in  zoology, 
physiology  and  physical  geography,  but  in  more  advanced 
regions  the  text-book  has  been  abandoned.  In  science 
teaching  its  place  is  taken  by  a  syllabus  of  experiments ; 
the  pupils  follow  these  under  direction,  and  make  very 
careful  notes,  the  note-books  being  required  by  many 
colleges  which  demand  science  for  admission.  The  method 
is  seen  at  its  best  in  the  physics  for  college  entrance  which 
is  very  often  the  characteristic  study  of  the  last  year  of  the 
high  school  course ;  the  pupils  work  through  the  experi- 
ments with  diligence  and  interest ;  the  teacher  may  discuss 
some  difficulty  with  a  small  group,  but  very  rarely  him- 
self demonstrates.  The  note-books  are  certified  for  college 
by  the  teacher's  signature.  Their  use  of  the  blackboard 
is  also  a  device  we  well  might  follow ;  the  classroom  is 
often  lined  with  blackboards  on  three  sides  where  fifteen 
or  twenty  pupils  can  work.  Half  of  the  class  will  write 
their  home-work  algebra  (or  part  of  it)  here,  while  the 
other  half  work  in  their  books,  or  look  on  and  criticise. 
A  lesson  period  will  thus  be  filled  up,  the  teacher  doing 
little  except  asking  an  occasional  question  or  answering 
one  from  a  pupil,  perhaps  adding  a  comment  or  reference 
from  another  section  of  the  subject.  The  American,  so 

II* 


164      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

far  as  one  saw,  does  not  cover  himself  with  chalk  and  his 
blackboard  with  formulae  as  some  of  our  mathematical 
teachers  do!  We  do  not  think  that  the  women  on  the 
staff  there  complain  that  nothing  but  grey  tweed  will 
stand  school  wear,  nor  would  a  headmistress  need  to  put 
on  a  different  dress  the  day  she  had  to  teach  algebra. 
German  composition,  Latin  grammar  and  geometry  are  also 
written  out  on  the  board,  and  this  makes  possible  correc- 
tion and  discussion  of  difficulties  on  the  blackboard  in  class, 
and  lessens  the  teacher's  burden  of  corrections  at  home. 

Manual  training  necessarily  is  even  more  a  matter  for 
the  laboratory  method  than  science  or  mathematics.  A 
sheet  of  directions  and  a  drawing  or  a  blue  print  for  the 
shop  work  gives  the  guidance  needed.  In  the  boys' 
manual  training  high  schools  the  writer  was  very  much 
impressed  by  the  difference  between  the  work  in  the  class- 
room— Latin,  English,  history,  etc. — where  the  recitation 
method  is  followed,  and  the  work  at  the  bench,  vice,  or 
forge  in  the  manual  training  shop.  In  the  one  the  boys 
seemed  slack,  slow,  and  indifferent ;  had  one  been  officially 
inspecting  in  England  it  would  certainly  have  been  con- 
demned. One  must  remember,  however,  that  this  side  of  the 
curriculum  seems  much  less  important  to  the  boys.  In  the 
workshop,  on  the  other  hand,  the  intensity  of  application 
thrilled  one  with  the  sense  of  the  fervour,  the  interest,  the 
enthusiasm  these  boys  flung  into  their  manual  training 
work  ;  the  rate  was  about  three  times  as  fast,  and  what  one 
can  only  call  the  voltage  or  intensity  of  application  was  con- 
siderably higher.  The  boys  evidently  believed  in  what  they 
were  doing,  in  the  one  case,  and  worked  each  for  himself; 
they  had  accepted  their  literary  class-work  as  something 
that  had  to  be  gone  through  decently  because  it  was  in  the 
programme.  After  such  an  experience  one  cannot  wonder 
that  reforming  Americans  press  for  handwork  or  manual 
training  of  one  kind  or  another  in  the  schools. 


Method  165 

There  is  a  further  reform  movement  which  is  described  in 
a  new  and  revolutionary  book  by  Preston  W.  Search,  a 
teacher  and  superintendent  of  many  years'  experience  who 
has  been  studying  at  Clark  University  under  Stanley 
Hall.1  The  author  is  a  leader  of  individualism  in  the  sub- 
collegiate  grades,  as  Dr.  Stanley  Hall  calls  him  ;  he  says : 
"  We  must  reconstruct  our  educational  system,  must  depart 
from  uniform  requirement ".  "  Too  much  time  is  lost  while 
others  are  reciting."  "  The  ordinary  form  of  recitation  is 
too  expensive."  "  The  teacher  is  too  much  a  hearer  of 
lessons."  Mr.  Search  advocates  something  like  a  return 
to  the  individual  work  in  former  times;  in  Latin,  say, 
one  and  a  half  hours  per  day  is  spent  in  the  Latin  labora- 
tory, each  pupil  working  steadily  along  at  Caesar,  grammar, 
composition,  etc. 

The  method  was  individual,  so  that  each  pupil  had  practically 
the  value  of  the  entire  period,  there  being  no  interruption 
of  the  general  class  while  one  individual  was  qualifying  to  his 
teacher. 

The  teacher  had  only  twenty  pupils,  and  was  thus  able 
to  supervise  and  direct  the  work  of  all ;  its  great  merit  is 
that  one  is  able  to  cover,  say,  no  chapters,  another  140, 
while  the  average  of  the  class  did  from  60  to  90  and 
a  few  weak  pupils  40  and  45.  The  details  of  an  experi- 
ment of  this  kind  in  a  Colorado  School  are  given  on 
pages  28  and  30.  Mr.  Search  considers  that  this  method 
would  allow  for  individual  variations,  conditions  of  health, 
growth,  delicacy,  loss  of  time  through  illness,  and  would 
give  the  able  pupil  the  opportunity  of  going  ahead.  He 
states  that  the  dull  pupil  "  is  soon  crowded  out,  and  is  not 
counted  in  the  number  belonging"  under  existing  con- 
ditions. As  in  the  laboratory,  a  small  group  from  time  to 

1  An  Ideal  School :  or,  Looking  Forward.  Appleton  &  Co.,  New  York, 
1907. 


i  66       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

time  who  are  at  the  same  stage  may  be  able  to  work 
together.  In  mathematics  such  a  method  is,  one  knows 
from  experience,  particularly  valuable. 

The  beauty  of  individual  work  is  that  no  two  teachers  con- 
duct it  alike.  Sometimes  the  teacher  proceeds  very  much  as 
one  would  in  a  drawing  lesson,  passing  from  pupil  to  pupil, 
vitalising  each  one  by  personal  inspiration,  suggestion  and 
kindly  criticism  while  sitting  by  the  pupil's  side,  and  occasion- 
ally illustrating  some  common  principle  by  class  explanation 
(p.  211). 

The  plan  of  this  ideal  school  implies  that  all  the  work 
should  be  departmental,  a  teacher  teaching  her  own 
subject  only,  as  in  the  high  school ;  young  children,  five  to 
ten,  are  to  be  taught  in  a  play  school  or  an  "  elementary 
school ".  Mr.  Search  clearly  disapproves  of  the  recitation 
method  as  ordinarily  employed;  he  speaks  of  a  pupil 
"wasting  thirty-five  minutes  passively  waiting  while  the 
others  are  reciting".1  Answering  the  objection  that  his 
method  means  one  teacher  to  twenty  pupils,  he  points  out 
that  under  the  ordinary  system  half  the  time  is  wasted  in 
"  dormancy  and  dreaming  ".  He  also  asks  : — 

Is  every  child  in  the  class  normally  interested?  Is  there 
free  opportunity  for  each  one  to  live  up  to  the  best  that  is  in 
him,  whatever  the  degree  may  be?  Is  there  not  always  an 
honoured  head  to  the  class,  and  also  a  discouraging  tail  ?  Are 
the  pupils  of  the  class  equally  occupied  during  the  moments  of 
the  recitation  ?  Admittedly  some  are  getting  great  value  from 
their  recitation  ;  but  are  all  so  benefited  at  every  point  of 
procedure  ?  Are  not  some  of  the  pupils  carefully  calculating 
their  chances  of  being  called  on,  with  every  encouragement  to 
take  a  rest  as  soon  as  their  turns  have  passed  ?  Are  not  many 
learning  skill  in  looking  the  teacher  squarely  in  the  eye,  without 

1  Some  American  teachers  visiting  English  schools  seem  to  appreciate  the 
fact  that  our  methods  save  time. 


Method  167 

hearing  a  word  that  is  being  said  ?  Is  there  not  encouragement 
to  the  shrewd  practices  of  certain  pupils,  who  know  how  to 
successfully  get  a  chance  to  recite  on  the  easy  passages  and  to 
throw  the  more  difficult  ones  to  their  classmates  ;  or  to  call  out 
the  talkative  teacher  who  can  almost  always  be  induced  to  kill 
time  until  the  recitation  closes  ?  What  are  the  ethical  values 
of  this  kind  of  work  ?  Or  suppose  the  work  is  all  honestly 
done ;  how  much  of  the  work  does  each  pupil  recite  on  ?  What 
fraction  of  the  recitation  period  is  he  actually  reciting  ?  (pp.  292 
and  293). 

A  passing  visitor  would  not  dare  to  make  these  criticisms, 
but  when  one  finds  them  made  by  American  authorities 
one  cannot  but  think  that  the  method  may  have  something 
to  do  with  what  are  generally  admitted  to  be  weaknesses 
in  the  American  system:  the  greater  number  of  years 
which  have  to  be  given  there  to  education,  and  the  lower 
standard  reached  by  American  boys  of  eighteen  compared 
with  those  of  France,  Germany,  or  the  better  schools  of 
England. 

Another  reform  in  method  is  now  being  advocated  in 
Boston  by  the  same  company  of  leaders  who  formed  the 
Social  Education  Congress  of  1906.  It  is  called  self- 
organised  group  work.  Dr.  Colin  Scott  of  the  Boston 
Normal  School  is  considered  the  best  authority  on  the 
subject.  It  is  based  on  the  social  idea  that  the  pupils 
should  learn  to  be  of  service  to  one  another.  America  is 
the  most  individualistic  of  countries ;  there  is  much  in  her 
commercial  life  to  encourage  the  idea  of  each  man  for 
himself,  with  the  cynical  Scots  addendum  as  to  the  fate  of 
the  hindmost.  The  schools  should  counteract  this  selfish 
and  materialistic  notion.  They  have,  especially  in  America, 
gone  the  other  way.  In  the  Social  Education  Quarterly 
for  March,  1907,  Wilbur  S.  Jackman  said,  speaking  of  an 
inquiry  made  into  the  school  life  of  a  number  of  university 
students : — 


1 68       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

There  is  not  a  single  instance  noted  when  there  was  any 
attempt  made  to  establish  relations  of  helpfulness  among  the 
pupils  themselves.  There  is,  however,  considerable  mention  of 
various  means  employed  by  the  teacher  to  keep  the  pupils  in  a 
state  of  isolation  from  each  other.  As  a  matter  of  fact  some  of 
the  most  elaborate  and  artistically  stupid  parts  of  the  school 
machinery  have  been  especially  devised  for  the  purpose  of 
keeping  pupils  from  mutual  assistance ;  whereas,  the  thing  above 
all  else  demanded  in  society  at  large  is  that  its  members  shall 
help  each  other  to  the  utmost.  The  only  places  where  mutual 
helpfulness  is  not  recognised  as  being  in  every  way  worthy  is  in 
school  and  in  prison  ;  in  this  particular  the  teacher  behind  the 
desk  and  the  guard  mounted  on  the  walls  have  something  in 
common.  It  is  most  unfortunate  that  this  tendency  toward 
mutual  assistance  is  treated  as  though  it  were  an  iniquity — as 
an  especial  brand  of  original  sin  ;  while,  in  fact,  it  is  the  latest 
dawning  and  most  lovable,  civilising  trait  in  human  character. 

The  proposition  to  transform  the  school  into  a  well-organised 
social  institution  is  not  merely  a  matter  of  abstract  theory  or 
pure  science.  It  is  a  definite  expression  of  a  movement  to 
make  the  schools,  in  common  with  other  agencies,  a  positive 
force  in  bettering  the  conditions  of  life. 

This  proposition  rests  upon  the  foundation-stone  in  human 
character  that  up  to  date  has  been  rejected  by  the  educational 
builders ;  namely,  the  natural  tendency  of  children  toward  help- 
fulness. The  spirit  of  consideration  and  helpfulness  is  what  we 
most  need  in  human  life,  and  the  schools  must  cherish  it  in  the 
children  and  train  directly  for  it.  The  kindergarten,  here  as 
ever,  is  the  best  type  of  what  we  want  in  school  life  clear  through 
the  university.  Go  into  any  good  kindergarten  and  note  how 
gladly  the  children  participate  in  the  many  opportunities  for  co- 
operation in  living  their  simple  and  beautiful  life. 

Group-work  is  intended  to  socialise  the  child,  which 
means  briefly,  as  applied  to  the  school,  "  helping  children 
to  educate  themselves  by  letting  them  co-operate  with 
kindred  souls  in  pursuit  of  wisdom  and  power  ". 


Method  169 

The  class  is  formed  into  self-directive  groups ;  the 
children  determine  what  they  shall  study  and  how.  Very 
interesting  experiments  in  working  out  this  method  have 
been  successfully  undertaken ;  one  in  history  by  Miss  Lotta 
Clark  at  the  High  School,  Charlestown,  Boston,  has  lasted 
two  years.  The  work  was  divided  up  among  members  of 
the  class,  and  a  "  Sidelights  Club"  was  organised  to  work 
at  collecting  pictures  and  other  illustrations.  Miss  Clark 
says  {Social  Education  Quarterly}  : — 

And  what  was  the  teacher's  part  in  this  new  order  of  things  ? 
She  was  learning  the  truth  of  the  statement  that  "  no  teacher  is 
equal  to  the  dynamic  force  of  the  class  before  her  ".  Her  energy 
was  taxed  to  the  utmost  to  utilise  all  that  the  pupils  produced, 
to  help  to  get  material  for  them,  to  find  and  suggest  books  to 
be  consulted,  and  to  give  them  credit  for  work  done. 

Our  history  work  was  completed  two  weeks  before  the  school 
closed,  and  the  extra  time  was  spent  in  debates,  reporting  items 
of  interest,  and  in  making  the  note-books  which  they  were  to 
take  home  as  rich  and  attractive  as  possible.  As  the  year 
closed,  I  felt  that  I  had  never  done  such  a  satisfactory  year's 
work,  and  in  all  the  classes  the  pupils  asked  if  they  might  not 
be  allowed  to  continue  their  work  next  year  in  the  same  way. 

At  the  Hyannis  Normal  School  Principal  Baldwin  has 
experimented  under  elementary  conditions.  He  says : — 

Such  work  is,  I  believe,  growing  in  favour  among  our  most 
thoughtful  teachers.  It  points  the  way  to  a  reorganisation  of 
our  schools  on  the  basis  of  sympathetic  co-operation  and  in- 
telligent citizenship. 

In  some  grammar  schools  (elementary)  group-work  has 
been  taken  once  a  week,  the  children  choosing  their  subjects. 
Great  interest  is  raised  and  excellent  progress  made.  Un- 
doubtedly, so  far,  it  is  clear  that  this  method  saves  time 
and  effort,  because  the  pupils  really  know  and  remember 
what  they  have  worked  up.  Dr.  Colin  Scott  has  proved 


170       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

this  himself  at  the  Boston  Normal  School  in  psychology, 
a  difficult  subject  for  girls  eighteen  years  of  age.  This 
class  covers  the  official  syllabus  in  half  the  time,  and  passes 
good  examinations.  The  mental  stimulus  is  extraordinarily 
strong.  But  the  teacher  must  not  assert  authority :  it  is 
an  example  of  the  contrast  between  the  kingdom  of  law 
and  the  kingdom  of  grace.  The  writer  was  fortunate 
enough  to  hear  Dr.  Colin  Scott's  class  at  work  on  psycho- 
logy. It  was  wholly  self-organised ;  this  was  typified  by 
the  arrangement  of  the  room.  A  circle  of  chairs  was 
formed  as  for  conversation ;  the  girls,  the  visitor,  and  the 
teacher  all  sat  round  together.  Three  girls  had  charge  of 
the  subject  for  the  day — visual  images ;  they  had  chosen 
one  girl  as  spokesman,  who  gave  her  account  of  what  they 
had  found  out.  The  others  took  notes  and  asked  questions. 
The  teacher  interposed  only  on  occasion  to  clear  up  by 
skilful  questioning  any  obscurity.  There  was  a  discussion, 
when  all  the  students  were  thinking,  and  concentrated 
earnest  effort  was  being  made.  Then  another  group  took 
up  the  running,  and  a  girl  said :  "  I  will  continue  my  topic, 
perception  and  idea  ".  At  the  end  the  teacher  made  clear 
three  difficult  points.  No  syllabus  is  laid  down  beforehand. 
The  pupils  suggest  what  they  would  like  to  work  at.  The 
same  method  is  followed  in  biology. 

This  self-organised  group-work  on  social  lines  is  related 
to  the  Dewey  movement  and  to  industrial  education.  It 
is  well  worth  investigation  by  English  inquirers.  We  also 
have  checked  too  much  in  school  the  instinct  for  pupils  to 
work  together.  They  can  often  help  one  another  in  a 
perfectly  fair  way,  just  as  grown-up  people  do  when  they 
work  together.  The  syndicate  for  lessons  in  No.  5  study 
of  Stalky  &  Co.  was  not  only  human  but  sensible,  and 
the  wiser  masters  at  Westward  Ho  recognised  its 
pedagogue  merit  in  their  private  discussions.  What  we 
want  to  do  is  to  recognise  syndicates  in  the  classroom. 


Method  171 

Mr.  Jackman's  words  may  form  a  fitting  conclusion  to 
this  sketch  of  what  may  prove  to  be  a  real  advance  in 
method.  He  was  a  true  prophet  of  education, "  who  being 
dead,  yet  speaketh". 

To  sum  up,  therefore,  the  resources  of  the  school  which  the 
teacher  may  utilise  in  the  development  of  a  social  organism  we 
have  on  the  part  of  the  pupils  (i)  a  natural  spirit  of  helpfulness ; 
(2)  an  inborn  love  of  work ;  (3)  a  desire  to  take  the  initiative ; 
(4)  an  ambition  for  creative  work ;  and  (5)  an  alertness  of 
mind  toward  public  needs.  Upon  these  foundation-stones  the 
social  structure  must  be  reared. 

That  these  qualities  of  character  may  be  normally  developed, 
the  curriculum  must  provide  an  abundance  of  suitable  material ; 
the  class  exercises  must  keep  to  the  forefront  matters  of  public 
interest  and  the  entire  organisation  must  offer  a  maximum  of 
freedom  to  the  individual  who  thinks  and  works  in  the  interest 
of  the  common  welfare.  Every  one  recognises  these  elements 
of  character  as  being  those  which  give  us  the  highest  type  of 
citizenship  in  the  community  at  large. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  TEACHING  OF  HISTORY  IN  SCHOOLS  AND  COLLEGES. 
Vous  enseignez  la  science  mere. — GAMBETTA. 

IT  would,  of  course,  be  impossible  for  any  one  teacher  to 
study  and  to  understand  the  methods  of  teaching  every 
subject  in  the  schools  and  colleges  of  another  country,  and 
thus  it  is  usual  for  an  observer  to  select  those  particular 
subjects  which  he  teaches  at  home.  We  may  quote  as 
examples  the  Report  of  the  High  Master  of  the  Manchester 
Grammar  School  on  the  teaching  of  Latin  in  Germany, 
and  some  of  the  Mosely  Commission  Reports  on  Engineer- 
ing, Legal,  and  Medical  Education  in  the  United  States. 

The  present  writer  has  been  a  teacher  of  history  for 
twenty-six  years,  and  has  had  occasion  through  the  new 
Historical  Association  in  England,  and  in  other  ways,  to 
give  particular  attention  to  the  organisation  and  methods 
of  teaching  the  subject  She  therefore  made  a  special 
study  of  it  in  America,  and  whenever  possible  went  to 
recitations  in  history.  But  though  the  grounds  of  action 
were  personal,  the  choice  was  worth  making  for  its  own 
sake. 

There  is  perhaps  no  subject  in  education  better  worth 
studying  in  America  than  history ;  it  is  taught  universally, 
and  throughout  the  whole  range,  in  primary  and  secondary 
schools,  in  colleges,  universities  and  technological  institutes, 
even  in  the  new  trades  schools  of  Manhattan  and  Boston. 
English  is  the  only  subject  more  pervasive,  since  arith- 
metic ceases  after  the  elementary  school  stage,  and  foreign 

172 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       173 

languages  and  formal  sciences  do  not  begin  till  the  second- 
ary school  is  reached.  Every  one  believes  in  history  as  a 
necessary  part  of  education,  and,  so  far  as  curriculum  is 
concerned,  the  place  it  takes  in  America  may  be  considered 
as  a  norm  towards  which  the  members  of  the  Historical 
Association  might  well  work  in  endeavouring  to  promote 
the  further  extension  in  England  of  the  subject.  It  is 
compulsory  to  a  far  greater  degree  there  than  with  us  ;  the 
work  in  the  public  elementary  school,  where  the  great 
mass  of  the  citizens  are  trained,  has  been  further  developed 
and  studied  than  as  yet  has  been  the  case  here.  Although 
the  school  law  of  every  State  of  the  Union  may  vary  from 
that  of  every  other,  the  teaching  of  history  in  the  public 
schools  is  general  throughout — of  United  States  history 
that  is — and  it  is  taught  well  in  the  more  progressive  areas. 
Good  text-books  have  been  written  and  good  methods 
worked  out ;  especially  is  this  true  of  the  later  years  of 
the  course,  the  grammar  grades  as  they  are  called,  the 
seventh  and  eighth  years.  The  need  for  the  definite  teach- 
ing of  patriotism  in  a  country  which  has  to  absorb  yearly 
an  enormous  number  of  foreign  immigrants  is  responsible 
in  part  for  the  importance  attached  to  national  history,  this 
being  a  manifestation,  too,  of  that  proud  national  self- 
consciousness  which  is  so  remarkable  to  the  silent,  shy 
Englishman. 

In  the  private  institutions  giving  elementary  education, 
such  as  the  wonderful  Horace  Mann  Elementary  School 
at  Columbia  University,  New  York,  some  European  and 
ancient  history  is  taught  to  the  younger  children.  This 
school,  like  the  famous  Dewey  Experimental  School  in  the 
University  of  Chicago,  builds  its  curriculum  year  by  year 
on  a  historic  basis.  "  The  child  in  his  school  life  should  live 
over  the  industrial  life  of  the  race."  Most  fascinating 
work  on  these  lines  is  to  be  seen  in  the  classes  of  these 
schools.  Professor  Dewey's  principles  may  be  most  con- 


174       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

veniently  gathered  by  the  English  student  from  The 
School  and  the  Child>  edited  by  Professor  J.  J.  Findlay, 
who  is  experimenting  in  the  Demonstration  School  attached 
to  the  Department  of  Education  in  the  University  of  Man- 
chester, in  the  adaptation  of  these  principles  to  English 
conditions.  Here  we  are  concerned  not  so  much  with  the 
teaching  of  the  three  R's  along  Professor  Dewey's  lines  (a 
subject  itself  worthy  of  a  whole  book),  as  with  the  place 
history  has  in  his  curriculum.  The  children  of  the  first 
grade,  six  years  of  age,  study  the  life  of  primitive  man,  the 
Indian  and  the  Eskimo.  At  the  Horace  Mann  School 
they  are  particularly  fortunate  in  having  a  splendid  an- 
thropological collection  close  at  hand  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum,  New  York ;  but  Indian  life  is,  of  course,  much 
nearer  to  American  children  than  anything  we  can  have, 
in  a  much  older  country.  The  second  grade  study  the 
pastoral  and  agricultural  grade  of  human  history,  animals, 
the  farm,  etc.  Here,  of  course,  in  England,  Biblical  stories 
could  be  correlated,  as  they  are  in  the  Horace  Mann  and 
the  Chicago  University  Schools.  In  the  third  grade  the 
beginnings  of  trade  and  discovery  are  applied  to  local 
conditions ;  in  Chicago  the  life  of  the  early  explorers 
and  the  geography  connected  with  the  development  of 
Chicago  are  studied,  and  these  are  continued  into  the 
fourth  grade.  In  the  Horace  Mann  School,  Henry 
Hudson,  New  Amsterdam,  the  Dutch  settlers  are,  of  course, 
more  suitable,  and  in  the  fourth  grade,  ten  to  eleven  years 
of  age,  the, lives  of  typical  men  of  action  connected  with  the 
development  of  the  nation,  like  John  Smith,  William  Penn, 
Washington,  Boone,  and  Lincoln,  the  makers  of  the  nation, 
are  the  subjects.  The  writer  visited  the  Chicago  Elemen- 
tary School  just  before  Thanksgiving,  the  great  national 
and  family  festival  of  the  United  States.  The  fifth-grade 
children  there  had  been  studying  the  history  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  and  they  were  just  preparing  for  a  party  at  which 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       175 

they  were  to  receive  their  parents,  when  everything  as  far 
as  possible  would  be  a  reproduction  of  seventeenth  century 
colonial  life.  The  children  had  made  costumes  for  their 
simple  acting,  and  were  to  cook  baked  beans,  brown  bread 
and  cranberry  sauce,  characteristic  dishes  of  the  Pilgrim 
Fathers,  to  offer  to  their  guests.  The  interest  excited  by 
this  very  practical  study  of  social  history  will  easily  be 
imagined. 

The  fifth-grade  work  in  the  Horace  Mann  Elementary 
School  consists  of  the  outlines  of  Greek  and  Roman  history ; 
a  lesson  on  the  Athens  of  Themistocles  was  heard,  and  the 
keenness  of  the  children  taking  part,  and  the  excellence  and 
soundness  of  the  method,  were  remarkable.  In  the  sixth 
grade  the  Middle  Ages  and  chivalry  are  taken ;  and  at  the 
Horace  Mann  School  it  is  found  that  the  boys  in  their 
games  adopt  feudal  phrases,  such  as  vassal  and  seigneur. 
In  the  seventh  grade,  the  highest  grade  with  these  schools, 
American  history  is  studied  in  the  more  formal  fashion 
possible  at  thirteen  years  of  age.  Throughout,  the  geo- 
graphy and  literature  are  correlated  with  the  history  in  these 
schools.  The  details  may  be  found  in  the  Elementary 
School  Teacher,  June,  1907,  vol.  vii.,  No.  lo,1  and  Columbia 
University  Teachers  College  Record  ("  The  Curriculum  of 
the  Elementary  School ") ; 2  the  latter  gives  a  complete 
account  of  the  principles  in  connection  with  the  different 
parts  of  the  system,  and  should  be  found  in  every  teacher's 
library. 

The  epoch-making  work  in  elementary  education  carried 
on  by  these  two  schools  is,  of  course,  not  without  its  effect 
on  the  ordinary  public  school,  and  already  in  the  more 
progressive  areas  the  primary  grades  may  be  found  study- 
ing primitive  man,  and  the  early  grammar  grades  having 

1  The  University  of  Chicago  Press,  Chicago  and  New  York. 
8  Teachers'  College,  Columbia  University,  1908. 


176      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

stories  from  early  European  and  ancient  history.1  The 
Pierce  School,  at  Brookline,  Massachusetts,  has  an  ex- 
tremely interesting  curriculum,  where  literature  rather  than 
history  is  the  centre,  but  literature  with  a  distinct  historical 
flavour.  The  work  done  in  the  highest  grammar  grade  at 
fourteen  years  of  age  on  chivalry  and  the  Arthurian  legends 
is  very  remarkable  and  well  worth  study.  It  is  made  more 
effective  by  visits  to  the  wonderful  series  of  pictures  by 
Abbey  in  the  Boston  Public  Library  on  the  "  Holy  Grail ". 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  history  in  the  English  elementary 
schools  could  be  developed  on  the  lines  of  the  Chicago  and 
Columbia  experiments,  when  London,  e.g.,  possesses  such 
a  continuous  history  as  Sir  Walter  Besant's  books  show. 
In  most  city  centres,  as  in  Manchester,  something  can  be 
made  in  the  third  and  fourth  years  of  the  early  development 
of  the  place  since  Domesday  Book,  of  the  lines  of  trade, 
local  government,  the  part  the  place  has  played  in  the 
Middle  Ages  and  the  Civil  War,  and  so  forth.  For  the 
last  year  of  the  elementary  course  the  study  of  the  British 
Empire  is,  alike  on  psychological  and  national  grounds,  the 
appropriate  subject  corresponding  with  the  study  of  United 
States  history  in  the  American  common  school. 

In  high  schools  history  is  universally  taught ;  it  is  found 
in  one  form  or  another  in  every  course  of  study,  and  is  in 

1  The  official  course  of  study  for  the  elementary  schools  of  Boston  does 
not  give  any  time  to  history  as  such,  in  the  first  five  grades,  but  provision 
is  made  for  myths  and  folk  tales.  The  formal  history  begins  in  the  sixth 
grade,  stories  from  American  history  and  visits  to  and  descriptions  of 
historical  places  are  prescribed ;  the  syllabus  covers  the  mound  builders 
and  the  Northmen,  and  the  Indians,  discoverers  and  explorers,  the  colonial 
settlements  to  the  revolutionary  wars.  The  seventh  grade  gives  the  same 
time,  reviews  the  work  of  the  sixth,  and  finishes  the  United  States  history 
to  the  present  day.  In  the  eighth  grade  180  minutes  a  week  are  given  to 
civil  government,  local  history,  and  a  review  of  United  States  history  in- 
cluding related  events  in  Europe.  See  also  the  syllabus  of  work  for 
Stockton,  California ;  Rosa  Winterburri,  Methods  in  Teaching.  Macmillan 
Co.,  New  York,  1907. 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       177 

general  required  for  graduation  from  the  high  school  or 
for  entrance  to  college.  Ancient  history  had  always  been 
studied  in  schools  fitting  for  college  because  of  its  connec- 
tion with  Greek  and  Latin.  Universal  history  was  also 
taught  as  a  "polite"  subject,  and  civics  or  the  history  of 
the  United  States  as  a  preparation  for  citizenship.  "  There 
was  no  recognised  consensus  of  opinion  in  the  country  at 
large,  not  one  generally  accepted  judgment,  not  even  one 
well-known  point  of  agreement,  which  would  serve  as  a 
beginning  for  a  consideration  of  the  place  of  history  in  the 
high  school  curriculum."  About  twenty-five  years  ago, 
however,  a  movement  for  reform  set  in,  the  results  of 
which  may  be  best  described  in  the  words  of  the  New 
York  State  Syllabus  for  Secondary  Schools : — 

The  growth  of  co-operative  spirit  among  history  teachers  may 
be  traced  in  the  formation  of  the  Committee  of  Ten  which  met 
at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  in  1892,  in  the  Columbia  Con- 
ference of  1896,  in  the  appointment  of  the  Committee  of  Seven, 
and  its  Report  in  1899  and  in  the  formation  of  history  teachers' 
associations  in  New  England,  in  the  North  Central  States,  in 
Nebraska,  California  and  Indiana  and  in  the  Middle  States  and 
Maryland. 

The  results  of  these  various  efforts  are  as  follows :  a  uniform 
course  of  history  for  secondary  schools  has  been  planned  and 
widely  adopted ;  uniform  requirements  for  admission  to  college 
supplemented  by  uniform  entrance  examinations  have  been  pro- 
vided ;  a  movement  to  articulate  the  courses  of  college  history 
with  those  of  the  high  school  has  been  started  ;  a  wisely  adapted 
course  of  history  for  elementary  schools  is  now  under  considera- 
tion ;  tendencies  to  overemphasise  the  use  of  local  history  and  - 
sources  in  secondary  schools  have  been  checked  ;  better  methods^6 
of  history  teaching  are  gaining  ground  in  both  high  school  and  "> 
college ;  the  demand  for  specially  trained  history  teachers  is 
growing ;  better  text-books  in  all  the  fields  of  history  have  been 
abundantly  provided. 

12 


178       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

One  of  the  most  important  results  of  these  co-operative  efforts 
has  recently  appeared  in  the  publication  of  a  History  Syllabus 
for  Secondary  Schools  prepared  by  a  special  Committee  of  the 
New  England  History  Teachers'  Association.  This  Committee 
was  instructed  "to  prepare  ...  a  report  on  practical  methods 
of  teaching  history,  with  such  topical  outlines,  references  and 
bibliographies  as  shall  help  teachers  to  put  into  operation  such 
suggestions  for  reform  in  history  teaching  as  may  be  applicable 
to  the  conditions  in  secondary  schools  ". 

The  whole  story  is  told  in  the  Report  of  the  Committee 
of  Seven  entitled  The  Study  of  History  in  Schools.1  The 
process  is  a  most  interesting  illustration  of  how  uniformity 
grows  in  America  out  of  voluntary  co-operation.  The 
Committee  which  was  appointed  by  the  Historical  Associa- 
tion sent  out  several  hundred  circulars,  asking  for  infor- 
mation, to  all  parts  of  the  United  States ;  three  of  the 
members  went  to  Germany,  France  and  England  to  study 
the  system  there.  The  course  they  framed  was  the  result 
of  combining  all  this  material  with  the  Committee's  own 
knowledge,  experience  and  judgment ;  they  were  guided 
largely  by  the  principle  of  continuity,  and  so  successfully 
was  their  work  done  that  it  has  been  universally  received. 
The  plan  is  clearly  shown  in  the  following  extract  from 
the  New  York  State  Syllabus : — 

Courses. — The  following  courses  of  history  in  the  order  given 
and  with  the  prescribed  time  allotments  are  either  required  or 
recommended : — 

1  It  is  somewhat  humiliating  to  read  in  the  Report :  "  The  situation  in 
England  does  not  offer  many  valuable  lessons  to  American  teachers. 
The  most  noticeable  features  are  a  lack  of  historical  instruction,  a  common 
failure  to  recognise  the  value  of  history,  and  a  certain  incoherence  and 
general  confusion."  We  think,  however,  that  if  the  member  of  the  Com- 
mittee who  visited  England  in  1897  na^  not  limited  himself  to  the  great 
public  schools  for  boys  he  would  have  formed  a  more  favourable  opinion. 
The  girls'  high  schools  have  always  paid  considerable  attention  to  history, 
and  in  at  least  half  a  dozen  of  these  in  London  at  the  date  of  his  visit  he 
could  have  seen  good  work. 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       179 


Minimum 
recitation 
time. 

Maximum 
recitation 
time. 

Allotted  year 
of  the  secondary 
course. 

a.  Ancient  history    .  -j 

3  periods  a 
week 

5  periods  a 
week 

V  First  or  second. 

b.  European  history   -| 

3  periods  a 
week 

5  periods  a 
week 

\  Second. 

c.  English  history    .  1 

3  periods  a 
week 

5  periods  a 
week 

j-  Third  or  second. 

d.  American  history    i. 

5  periods  a 
week 

}    - 

Fourth  or  third. 

If  two  years  only  are  given  to  history,  c  and  </are  recommended. 

Owing  to  the  pressure  of  other  subjects  some  schools 
are  obliged  to  leave  out  history  from  one  year  of  the 
course ;  if  they  do  they  either  shorten  the  time  of  English 
history  in  the  third  year,  and  take  the  first  half  of  that 
for  their  European  history,  or  they  teach  European  in 
connection  with  English  history.  The  rationale  of  the 
course  speaks  for  itself:  "  No  one  of  these  fields  can  be 
omitted  without  leaving  serious  lacunae  in  the  pupil's 
knowledge  of  history,".  "Furthermore,  English  history 
until  1776  is  our  history;  Edward  I.  and  Pym,  Hampden 
and  William  Pitt,  belong  to  our  past  and  helped  to  make 
us  what  we  are.  Any  argument  in  favour  of  American 
history,  therefore,  holds  almost  equally  true  for  the  study 
of  English  history."  "  Four  years  should  be  devoted  to 
the  study  of  the  world's  history,  giving  the  pupil  some 
knowledge  of  the  progress  of  the  race,  enabling  him  to 
survey  a  broad  field  and  to  see  the  main  acts  in  the 
historical  drama." l  It  will  be  noticed  that  chronological 

1  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Seven. 
12  * 


180      Impressions  of  American   Education  in   1908 

sequence  is  preserved,  and  that  what  used  to  be  called 
civics,  the  development  and  work  of  American  institutions 
and  of  governmental  problems,  to-day  is  studied  when  the 
pupil  is  most  mature,  can  read  more  difficult  books,  and 
use  more  advanced  methods.  During  the  year  of  ancient 
history  a  short  introductory  survey  of  the  ancient  Oriental 
kingdoms  is  given,  then  the  usual  course  in  Greek  and 
Roman  history,  the  latter  not  only  including  the  Empire 
to  476,  but  being  continued  up  to  the  age  of  Charlemagne. 
"  Hence  from  motives  of  clearness  alone  there  is  a  gain 
in  carrying  the  pupil  on  to  an  age  of  comparative  order 
and  simplicity,  such  as  one  finds  in  the  time  of  Charle- 
magne." The  Committee  faced  the  special  difficulties  of 
mediaeval  history  which  is,  as  we  have  seen,  omitted  if 
anything  is  omitted ;  it  is  sometimes  centred  round  the 
history  of  France. 

The  very  careful  attention  given  to  English  history  is 
comparatively  new  in  American  schools.  "The  study 
may  be  doubly  useful  if  the  work  is  so  conducted  that  it 
serves  in  some  measure  as  a  review  of  continental  history 
and  as  a  preparation  of  American  history."  The  fact 
illustrates  the  different  attitude  of  Americans  to-day  since 
America  has  become  a  world  power.  In  regard  to  the 
fourth  year  of  work  in  American  history  we  will  again 
quote  the  New  York  State  Syllabus : — 

The  creation  of  a  new  school  of  American  historians  whose 
work  has  been  to  show  that  the  American  Constitution  was  not 
"  struck  off  at  a  given  time  by  the  brain  and  purpose  of  man," 
but  that  the  history  of  America,  like  that  of  every  other  country, 
has  been  an  outgrowth  from  previous  conditions — that  America 
has  never  occupied  an  isolated  position,  but  that  it  has  been 
influenced  throughout  its  development  by  other  nations  and  that 
it  has  in  its  turn  influenced  them ;  that  we  cannot  understand 
present  conditions  in  our  own  country  without  studying  how 
these  conditions  have  come  to  be ;  that  patriotism  no  longer 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       181 

means  adhesion  to  the  statement,  "  My  country,  right  or  wrong, 
My  country,"  but  a  united  effort  on  the  part  of  all  its  citizens  to 
make  the  country  right. 

This  new  point  of  view  of  the  historian  has  been  reflected  in 
the  text-book  written  for  the  schools.  This  no  longer  presents 
in  flamboyant  style  the  traditional  spectacular  events  that  col- 
lectively have  been  called  "  the  history  of  the  United  States," 
but  it  treats  the  history  of  the  country  as  a  natural  development. 
It  is  no  longer  a  heterogeneous  collection  of  miscellaneous  facts 
chronologically  arranged — but  it  is  an  orderly  presentation  of 
related  events.  It  is  not  based  on  rumour,  traditions,  theories 
and  previously  conceived  ideas,  but  on  careful  investigation  of 
the  authorities  used.  It  does  not  assume  that  "advanced  work 
in  history  consists  in  reading  larger  books  and  more  of  them," 
but  it  adapts  both  matter  and  method  to  the  capacities  of  those 
who  are  to  use  it.  The  text-book  for  the  elementary  and 
grammar  grades  presents  the  picturesque  and  imaginative  side 
of  history  in  order  that  the  child  may  have  a  vivid  picture  of 
the  conspicuous  events  of  the  past.  The  text-book  for  the 
secondary  school  places  emphasis  on  underlying  causes  and  on 
the  development  of  great  movements  in  order  that  the  boy 
may  appreciate  the  unity  of  history. 

The  new  teacher  of  American  history  is  both  a  cause  and  a 
result  of  the  new  text-book.  He  appreciates  the  importance  of 
treating  American  history  as  a  continuous  development  from 
European  history — not  as  a  disconnected  series  of  special 
creations.  He  understands  that  all  society  is  organic  in  char- 
acter and  that  therefore  history  cannot  be  taught  as  a  description 
of  inorganic  matter. 

The  teacher  of  to-day  who  teaches  American  history  ap- 
preciates Professor  Maitland's  apostrophe  of  the  map  of  Eng- 
land— "  that  most  wonderful  of  all  palimpsests  !  "  He  sees  in 
the  map  of  America  another  most  wonderful  palimpsest  whereon 
have  been  written  the  hopes  and  aspirations  and  discourage- 
ments, the  failures  and  successes  of  Spaniard  and  Frenchman, 
Swede  and  Hollander  and  Englishman,  of  monk  and  friar,  of 


1 82       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

fur-trader  and  lumberman,  of  frontiersman  and  immigrant,  of 
political  refugee  and  religious  enthusiast  (New  York  State 
Syllabus,  American  History). 

It  may  well  be  understood  that  to  see  all  these  schemes, 
as  laid  down  in  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Seven, 
actually  working  in  the  schools  is  a  most  interesting  ex- 
perience ;  theory  and  practice  go  hand  in  hand.  In  regard 
to  the  method  it  is,  of  course,  unnecessary  to  repeat  the 
general  account  given  in  the  previous  chapter.  The  lec- 
ture system,  which  many  English  teachers  would  advocate 
for  history  even  if  they  disapproved  of  it  for  other  subjects, 
is  considered  in  America  to  be  quite  wrong  here  also. 
Recitation  from  the  text-book  is  the  basis  of  their  work ; 
occasional  written  essays  occur,  and  short  written  examina- 
tion tests.  "  By  preparing  in  different  books,  or  by  using 
more  than  one  book  on  a  lesson,  pupils  will  acquire  the 
habit  of  comparison,  and  the  no  less  important  habit  of 
doubting  whether  any  one  book  covers  the  ground." 
"  The  library  should  be  the  centre  and  soul  of  all  study  in 
history  and  literature ;  no  vital  work  can  be  carried  on 
without  books  to  which  pupils  have  ready  and  constant 
access."  The  school  libraries  are  accessible,  the  books 
are  freely  used,  and  a  librarian  who  gives  her  full  time  to 
the  work  is  often  in  attendance.  Pupils  are  taught  to  use 
catalogues  and  indexes  as  well  as  atlases  and  encyclo- 
paedias. There  has  been  a  strong  current  in  favour  of 
what  has  been  called  the  source  method,  i.e.,  that  pupils 
got  their  facts  and  ideas  from  reproductions  of  original 
material,  such  as  Magna  Charta,  and  not  from  text- 
books, but  the  practical  difficulties  of  work  of  this  kind 
with  young  pupils  has  led  to  the  method  being  somewhat 
less  popular  at  present  than  it  has  been  formerly.  Ob- 
viously it  can  only  be  successful  when  the  teacher  is  an 
expert,  and  has  used  original  material  herself. 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       183 

A  greater  amount  of  home-work  is  expected  than  would 
be  possible  in  an  English  school,  where  the  pupils  are 
learning  a  good  many  subjects,  and  nowhere  does  the 
advantage  of  the  American  system  of  learning  a  few  sub- 
jects at  a  time  come  out  more  clearly  than  in  the  study 
of  history.  The  lesson  a  day,  with  at  least  an  hour  or 
two  hours'  private  study  and  preparation,  means  that  the 
whole  standard  is  very  much  higher,  and  the  pupil  in 
school  will  keep  working  from  a  library  almost  like  a 
college  student  with  us.  In  class  pupils  take  notes  of 
what  is  said  by  their  fellows  in  recitation,  and  they  freely 
question  or  supplement  what  is  said ;  the  teacher  does 
very  little  apparently,  but  is,  of  course,  guiding  the  work 
the  whole  time,  and  for  success  must  know  everything  in 
all  the  available  books.  The  American  method  at  its  best 
demands  perhaps  more  from  the  teacher  than  our  English 
method,  though  at  its  worst  it  may,  of  course,  mean 
mechanical  repetition  of  the  words  of  the  text-book  by  the 
pupil.  Great  importance  is  attached  to  the  use  of  a 
syllabus.  At  the  Horace  Mann  School,  where  recitation 
of  the  most  admirable  kind  was  heard,  the  teacher  stated 
that  she  spent  the  first  three  weeks  of  the  session  in 
teaching  the  class  how  to  work,  what  the  headings  of  the 
syllabus  meant,  how  they  were  to  be  connected  with  the 
text-books,  and  how  notes  were  to  be  taken.  "If  they 
study  their  own  way  they  are  wasting  time,  they  must 
learn  what  to  forget  and  what  to  remember."  "  They  get 
at  the  method  through  imitation."  "  I  correct  for  form." 
Obviously  the  teacher  must  follow  the  syllabus  carefully 
topic  by  topic,  but,  as  one  heard,  she  is  quite  ready  to 
take  up  problems  and  comparisons  with  modern  days 
naturally  arising  out  of  a  lesson.  The  work  done  by  the 
pupils  in  these  recitations  is  extraordinarily  brilliant, 
sound  and  thoughtful.  In  some  schools,  however,  there  is 
too  much  seeking  for  facts,  the  ethical  side  is  almost 


184      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

avoided ;  the  writer  was  informed  that  there  has  been  a 
distinct  reaction  against  emphasising  the  emotional  and 
moral  side  of  history;  certainly  American  pupils  show 
much  more  interest  in  rather  dull  facts,  whether  of  the 
Athenian  Constitution,  the  explorations  of  Champlain,  or 
the  reforms  of  Colbert,  than  English  girls  would  in  a  like 
case. 

As  we  have  said  in  Chapter  II.,  examinations  have  not 
to  be  reckoned  with  to  any  great  extent  in  American 
schools,  but  when  they  have  they  exercise  an  injurious  in- 
fluence, as  with  us,  on  the  teaching  of  history.  However, 
the  questions  set  by  the  College  Entrance  Examinations 
Board  and  for  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 
are  very  sensible  and  thoughtful.1 

For  entrance  to  college,  whether  by  examination  or 
otherwise,  two  units  in  general  are  required,  but  more  may 
be  offered ;  there  is  a  tendency  for  these  units  to  be  in 
ancient  history  and  United  States  history. 

The  work  of  the  commercial  high  schools  deserves 
special  mention  ;  here  history  is  always  compulsory.  Con- 
sidered a  most  important  agent  in  training,  it  is,  of  course, 
specialised  to  lead  on  to  economics.  In  the  High  School 
of  Commerce,  New  York,  which  has  a  five  years'  course, 
history  begins  in  the  second  year,  with  a  general  outline, 
three  lessons  a  week,  from  the  Beginning  of  Nations  to 
1750,  with  special  reference  to  economic  history  and  geo- 
graphy. In  the  third  year  English  and  Colonial  history 
from  1620  to  1750,  and  England  and  the  Continent  from 
1750  to  the  present  day,  are  studied  with  special  refer- 
ence to  the  materials  of  commerce  (three  periods  a  week). 
In  the  fourth  year  the  history  of  the  United  States  with 
special  reference  to  the  industrial  and  constitutional  as- 
pects (four  periods  a  week)  concludes  the  compulsory  work. 

1  See  Appendix. 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       185 

In  the  fifth  year,  among  the  electives,  is  included  a  course 
of  nineteenth  century  history  (four  periods  a  week). 

The  new  Commercial  High  School  for  Boys  in  Boston 
pays  particular  attention  to  history,  and  has  an  admirable 
course  controlled  and  worked  by  experts.  The  writer 
twice  visited  this  school,  and  was  much  interested,  though 
again  somewhat  humiliated  to  learn  that  the  authorities, 
who  had  studied  in  Europe  before  the  opening  of  the 
school,  considered  that  England  had  very  little  to  teach 
them  compared  with  Germany.  The  course  begins  there 
with  a  survey  of  world  history,  taking  a  year  and  a  half, 
with  special  reference  to  commerce  and  industry.  A  lesson 
on  the  first  Punic  War  in  this  course  was  full  of  life,  and 
touched  by  a  far  deeper  moral  purpose  than  had  been 
noticed  in  other  history  lessons.  The  second  half  of  the 
second  year  is  devoted  to  commercial  geography,  the  boys 
bringing  questions  of  their  own.  As  the  teacher  says: 
"  They  are  just  brimming  over  (that's  the  word)  with 
ideas".  In  the  third  year  economics  is  studied  with  a 
cursory  review  of  ancient  commerce,  of  the  mediaeval  guild, 
the  Hansa,  the  effect  of  feudalism,  etc.  The  teacher  gets 
as  soon  as  possible  to  England,  and  to  the  Industrial  Re- 
volution, finishing,  of  course,  with  economic  history  in  the 
United  States.  The  fourth  year  is  given  to  economics. 
The  boys  each  have  a  text-book,  and  there  is  a  small  de- 
partmental library  as  well  as  some  general  library  facili- 
ties. The  aim  is  to  give  a  liberal  education  in  touch  with 
local  conditions.  The  boys  easily  find  posts  at  eighteen 
in  business  houses,  and  a  few  go  on  to  college,  where 
we  feel  sure  some  of  them  will  have  been  induced  to 
specialise  in  history  through  the  influence  they  have  been 
under  at  school. 

In  colleges  and  universities  history  occupies  relatively  an 
even  more  important  place,  compared  with  England,  than 
it  does  in  the  high  school,  and  this  whether  the  college 


1 86       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

concerned  be  one  given  to  electives  or  one  where  the 
courses  of  study  are  largely  prescribed.  The  type  of  the 
first  is,  of  course,  the  oldest  and  most  august — Harvard. 
The  writer  had  no  opportunity  of  studying  the  teaching 
of  history  there,  but  it  was  clear  from  the  formal  docu- 
ments in  the  University  office  that  the  division  of  history 
and  political  science  is  one  of  the  most  important.  It 
appears  that  no  subject  is  so  largely  studied,  including,  as 
it  does,  not  only  history  proper,  but  government  and 
economics.  The  section  of  the  official  register  dealing  with 
these  departments  is  worth  careful  study. 

In  that  dated  June,  1907,  appeared  the  names  of  fifteen 
instructors  in  history  and  government,  and  nine  in  econo- 
mics, many  of  them  men  of  the  highest  distinction  ;  there 
are  also  eleven  assistants.  The  list  of  courses  alone  covers 
four  pages  of  the  pamphlet.  "  The  instruction  offered  by  the 
Department  is,  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  arranged  under 
two  headings :  History  and  Government.  In  each  case 
the  more  general  courses  are  designated  as  '  Primarily  for 
Undergraduates,'  those  requiring  somewhat  more  training 
and  information  as  '  For  Undergraduates  and  Graduates,' 
those  requiring  rather  special  interest  on  the  part  of  the 
students  as  '  Primarily  for  Graduates/  and  those  in  which 
the  element  of  research  is  most  prominent  as  '  Courses  of 
Research '." l  The  most  elementary  provide  for  beginners  in 
mediaeval  and  modern  history,  and  in  constitutional  history. 
It  is  possible  at  Harvard  to  specialise  as  one  does  at  Cam- 
bridge for  a  tripos.  "  Students  who  aim  at  real  achieve- 
ment in  historical  study  must  be  content  to  direct  their 
efforts  in  the  first  two  or  three  years  mainly  towards  gain- 
ing a  broad  and  comprehensive  knowledge  of  general  fields 
of  history.  They  will  then  be  in  a  position  to  take  up  the 
study  of  limited  topics,  with  intelligent  appreciation  of  the 

1  Official  pamphlet. 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       187 

results  they  obtain."  The  Degree  of  A.B.  with  distinction 
may  be  gained  by  students  who  specialise  and  present  a 
thesis ;  in  other  words,  one  can  take  honours  in  history  at 
Harvard  as  one  can  at  Oxford.  It  should  be  remembered 
in  this  connection  that  there  is  provided  for  women  at 
Radcliffe  a  "  second  table  "  where  those  Harvard  professors 
who  have  the  time  and  inclination  repeat  their  course  for 
the  benefit  of  women  students. 

The  University  of  Wisconsin  may  be  taken  as  a  type 
of  one  where  courses  are  prescribed  to  such  an  extent  that 
the  degree  of  specialisation  allowed  at  Harvard  or  in  Eng- 
land is  impossible.  What  can  be  done  at  Wisconsin  is 
expressed  arithmetically  as  43  out  of  120 ;  with  a  four 
years'  course,  each  year  containing  two  semesters,  and 
a  student  taking  fifteen  lectures  a  week,  the  total  number 
of  units  for  graduation  may  be  considered  as  120  (15 
x  8  =  1 20).  Of  these  no  more  than  forty -three  may 
be  offered  in  history.  As  this  University  is  distinguished 
for  its  facilities  in  the  subject,  having  a  large  and  brilliant 
faculty,  and  the  most  magnificent  historical  library  west 
of  the  Alleghanies,  the  writer  was  somewhat  surprised  to 
find  that  the  undergraduate  could  not  give  more  than  a 
third  of  his  time  to  history  ;  she  was  told  that  it  would  be 
quite  impossible  for  a  student  to  do  the  reading  and  home- 
work for  a  greater  amount  of  history  than  forty-three  units, 
apart  from  the  question  that  such  premature  specialisation 
is  not  considered  desirable.  Such  work  should  be  done 
by  the  graduate  student,  of  which  class  there  is  a  large 
number  in  attendance  at  Madison. 

History  is  not  among  the  required  studies,  these  being 
English  and  a  certain  amount  of  language  work,  but  history 
or  science  must  be  taken,  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  a  very 
large  number  of  students  do  take  history.  Twenty-six 
classes  appear  on  the  time-table,  several  of  these  having 
the  character  of  a  seminar ;  there  are  also  thirty-six  in 


I  88       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

political  economy  and  nineteen  in  political  science.  There 
are  nine  professors,  and  lecturers,  besides  Professor  Vinodo- 
graff,  who  acts  as  special  lecturer.  The  elementary  courses 
are  mediaeval  and  modern  European  history,  history  of  the 
United  States,  two  courses  on  English  history  in  successive 
years,  and  one  on  ancient  history ;  these  occur  generally 
three  periods  a  week.  More  special  courses  are  given  for 
undergraduates  and  graduates  ;  there  are  forty  of  these  in 
the  calendar,  and  there  are  twenty  for  graduates  only  of  a 
very  advanced  character,  such  as  bibliography,  palaeography 
and  diplomatics,  history  of  Europe  and  the  Far  East, 
etc.  The  courses  in  political  economy  are  also  numerous 
and  complete,  and  are  closely  connected  with  the  condi- 
tions of  to-day,  e.g.,  commercial  economics,  manufacturing 
industries,  charities  and  corrections,  etc.  Graduate  work 
will  more  properly  be  discussed  later  when  treating  of 
American  university  work  in  history. 

The  writer  was  fortunate  enough  to  hear  lectures  in  the 
History  Department  of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  ;  these, 
like  the  recitations  in  the  Horace  Mann  School,  were  models 
of  method  in  teaching.  The  writer  cannot  presume  to  give 
an  opinion  as  to  their  scholarship  ;  the  very  ease  with  which 
the  professors  talked,  as  if  drawing  on  a  boundless  store  of 
knowledge,  was,  to  say  the  least,  powerful  and  impressive, 
though  the  lectures,  being  given  to  undergraduates,  were 
necessarily  somewhat  of  an  elementary  character.  What 
struck  a  teacher  about  them  was  the  way  material  was 
arranged ;  each  piece  of  knowledge  fitted  into  the  next, 
there  was  nothing  superfluous,  and  yet  a  sufficient  amount 
of  detail  was  given  to  excite  interest,  and  to  make  the 
story  of  bygone  times  real.  Extracts  from  original  authori- 
ties were  given,  and  appropriate  and  masterly  sketches  in 
a  few  words  added  interest  to  the  lecture.  The  numbers 
in  attendance  sometimes  amounted  to  200;  such  large 
groups  are  split  up  for  quizzes  or  examinations,  both  oral 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       189 

and  written,  the  instructors  helping.  Some  classes  were 
equally  divided  between  men  and  women ;  in  some  the 
women  predominated. 

Vassar  may  stand  as  a  type  of  the  women's  college  where 
courses  of  study  are  prescribed  ;  here  history  is  required  of 
all  students,  both  for  entrance  and  the  first  or  second  year. 
Unfortunately,  as  it  must  appear  to  an  Englishwoman,  the 
regulations  at  Vassar  do  not  allow  a  student  even  in  the 
third  and  fourth  years  to  specialise  completely  in  history. 
Only  six  hours  a  week  out  of  fifteen  may  be  taken ;  this 
seems  a  pity — if  a  stranger  may  venture  so  far  as  to  criticise 
so  famous  an  institution — inasmuch  as  the  Department  of 
History  there  is  peculiarly  strong,  and  the  library  extra- 
ordinarily rich  in  material.  There  are  six  professors  and 
instructors  in  the  department,  five  ladies  and  one  man,  and 
the  head  of  it,  Miss  Lucy  Salmon,  is  one  of  the  leading 
authorities  in  America  on  the  teaching  of  history,  the  only 
woman  who  was  on  the  Committee  of  Seven.  The  course 
at  Vassar  is  explained  by  the  subjoined  diagram  : — 

TABLE  OF  HISTORY  COURSES  AT  VASSAR  COLLEGE. 

Required  Course. 

General  European  History. 

One  Year. 

General.  Electives. 


American.    English.    French. 


Contem-  Ancient.  American  Northern  Modern  Historical 
porary.  Political   Europe.    Russia.  Geography. 

*  Literature. 


Advanced  Electives. 


Nineteenth 
Century. 

1 
Renaissance 
and 
Reformation. 

| 
Municipal 
Government. 

1 
British 
Colonisation 
and 
Constitution. 

Civil 
Service. 

Historical 
Material. 

Prehistoric 
Europe. 

Each  course  means  three  class  periods  a  week,  except  that  marked  *. 


190       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  features  of  the  Vassar 
work  is  the  stress  laid  on  teaching  the  students  how  to 
deal  with  material.  The  aim  we  may  quote  from  Miss 
Salmon's  pamphlet  of  suggestions  : — 

What  the  Student  should  Gain  from  the  Required  Course  in 
History  at   Vassar  College. 

From  the  subject  studied  : — 

A  bird's-eye  view  of  Western  Europe. 

An  appreciation  of  historical  developments. 

An  understanding  of  the  unity  of  history. 

Historical  perspective. 

A  background  for  work  in  other  subjects. 
From  the  study  of  the  subject : — 

To  use  books. 

To  analyse  material. 

To  vivify  history. 

To  understand  the  difference  between  reading  history 
and  studying  history. 

To  appreciate  the  difference  between  history  and  his- 
torical record. 

To  understand  what  the  historian  does  in  writing  history. 

To  connect  the  present  with  the  past  and  the  past  with 
the  present. 

The  students  have  weekly  conferences  with  the  pro- 
fessor, each  getting  her  own  ten  minutes  of  private  confer- 
ence ;  she  learns  to  make  her  own  bibliography,  to  make 
abstracts  and  summaries  and  to  take  notes ;  essays  are 
not  required.  In  Miss  Salmon's  words,  "  They  learn  how 
to  collect  material,  collate  material,  and  interpret  material ". 
This  includes,  of  course,  the  scientific  criticism  and  analysis 
of  historical  material.  The  library  which  is  so  large  as  to 
have  five  librarians,  all  fully  qualified  graduates  of  library 
schools,  is  naturally  essential  for  work  of  this  kind.  Even  on 
a  Saturday  afternoon  when  the  lake  was  alive  with  skaters, 
and  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  grounds  at  sunset  tempted 
one  to  walk  or  bicycle,  the  library  contained  many  students, 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       191 

of  whom  some  doubtless  were  among  the  500  in  the  De- 
partment of  History.  Of  these  there  are  fifty  seniors  tak- 
ing the  double  course ;  that  is  the  maximum  amount  of 
work  the  regulations  will  allow,  and  these  may  read  widely 
in  connection  with  their  lectures,  and  go  to  a  summer 
school  for  a  six  weeks'  course  of  advanced  work. 

At  Wellesley  College  history  is  required  for  entrance, 
but  is  not  prescribed  for  the  degree,  except  in  the  form  of 
Biblical  history.  1 1  is,  however,  largely  studied,  and  students 
are  able  to  specialise  to  some  considerable  amount.  There 
are  two  professors  and  two  instructors  on  the  staff. 

As  we  have  stated  more  than  once  the  specialist  in 
America  is  expected  to  do  graduate  work.  We  may 
quote  from  a  good  authority  writing  on  the  ordinary  de- 
gree course  in  a  women's  college : — 

It  is  not  possible  for  a  student  to  get  more  than  a  good  pre- 
paration for  teaching  history.  She  cannot  get  an  excellent  one. 
On  the  other  hand,  she  can  get  much  more  than  is  demanded 
for  teaching  history  in  the  secondary  schools.  Boards  of 
Education  do  not  as  yet  demand  specialists  for  teaching  history 
in  the  schools.  In  the  small  high  schools  history  has  to  be 
combined  with  some  other  subject,  and  its  teaching  is  often  at- 
tempted by  those  who  have  had  comparatively  little  preparation. 
We  need  a  more  enlightened  public  opinion  to  demand  high 
preparation  in  the  secondary  schools,  but  it  is  coming.  All 
through  New  England  and  in  New  York  State  a  college  degree 
is  required.  This  is  an  advance  over  conditions  that  prevailed 
twenty  years  ago. 

The  technological  institutes  must  not  be  wholly  left  out 
of  mind.  In  the  best  of  these  provision  is  made  for  giv- 
ing a  good  liberal  education  as  well  as  a  professional  one, 
for  training  men  and  not  engineers.  The  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology,  as  perhaps  the  most  important, 
should  be  noted  in  detail.  There  history  is  compulsory 


192       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

during  the  first  and  second  years  of  the  course  for  all 
students ;  history  is  required  in  the  entrance  examination, 
a  term  of  United  States  history  in  the  second  half  of  the 
first  year  at  college,  and  in  the  second  year  course,  in  the 
first  half  of  the  session,  in  European  history.  In  the 
architectural  course,  architectural  history  and  the  history 
of  European  civilisation  and  art  are  compulsory  in  the 
third  and  fourth  years.  The  aim  of  the  required  work  for 
the  regular  students  is  to  acquaint  them  with  contemporary 
history  and  political  institutions  ;  to  stimulate  and  broaden 
interest  in  the  world  of  to-day,  and  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  good  citizenship.  The  European  countries  generally 
studied  are  England,  a  central  monarchy,  France,  a  re- 
public; Switzerland,  a  federal  republic;  and  Germany,  a 
federal  monarchy.  In  the  third  and  fourth  years  in  the 
Institute  of  Technology  some  culture  studies  must  be 
taken,  and  among  these  history  is  offered,  a  course  on  the 
history  of  science  being  particularly  appropriate.  That 
these  studies  should  appear  at  all  in  a  professional  course 
is  a  remarkable  testimony  to  the  American  belief  in 
education.  The  President  states  in  his  1907  Report  that 
the  result  has  not  been  all  that  might  be  hoped  for. 
"  The  student  tends  to  place  a  light  value  on  all  studies 
that  do  not  lead  to  visible  results."  The  ideal  would,  of 
course,  be  that  the  professional  course  of  study  should  come 
after  the  general.  See  supra,  page  18. 

In  a  book  like  the  present  it  would  be  impertinent  to 
say  much  about  post-graduate  work  in  history  in  great 
American  Universities,  such  as  Harvard,  Yale,  and  Johns 
Hopkins.  *This  leads  to  the  Degree  of  M.A.  and  Ph.D.; 
it  is  required  of  teachers  in  the  best  schools,  and  still 
more,  of  course,  of  teachers  in  colleges,  and  takes  from  one 
to  three  years.  It  is  only  possible  in  institutions  possess- 
ing great  libraries  like  the  University  of  Wisconsin;  there 
a  good  deal  of  research  is  being  done,  especially  on  the 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       193 

history  of  Western  exploration.  The  beautiful  white 
marble  building  there  containing  the  University  Library 
also  houses  that  of  the  State  Historical  Society,  which  is 
remarkably  rich  in  MSS.  and  other  material  for  the  study 
of  the  history  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  It  was  a  thrilling 
experience  actually  to  handle  the  original  journals  of  early 
explorers,  and  the  oldest  written  document  dealing  with 
the  history  of  Wisconsin,  a  commission  of  a  French  officer 
in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  The  power  of  research  must 
needs  grow  in  such  an  atmosphere.  The  writer  was  also 
present  at  one  of  the  graduate  seminars  in  the  Economics 
Department  studying  cities ;  the  meeting  was  in  the  even- 
ing— 7.30-9.30.  Professors  Richard  Ely  and  Ross  and 
other  members  of  the  faculty  were  present,  and  about 
twenty  students.  Original  papers  prepared  by  students 
on  statistics  of  population  were  read  and  discussed. 

This  section  of  the  subject  may  appropriately  be  con- 
cluded by  reference  to  an  illuminating  statement  made  in 
an  interview  by  the  President  of  the  University  of  Wis- 
consin, Dr.  van  Hise :  "  These  subjects — history,  economics, 
sociology — are  the  modern  humanities,  they  appeal  to  the 
practical  people  of  the  West  far  more  than  science.  These 
studies  are  in  the  closest  living  relation  with  the  life  of  the 
community,  they  are  therefore  the  most  vital  subjects,  and 
receive  the  greatest  amount  of  attention  and  thought." 
A  definite  illustration  of  this  truth  is  afforded  by  the  value 
of  the  services  rendered  to  the  State  by  the  Professors  in 

istory  and  Economics,  who  advise  the  State  Government 
which,  like  the  University,  is  seated  at  Madison)  on  taxa- 
tion and  other  economic  questions. 

Every  student  of  the  subject  dealt  with  in  this  chapter 
should  read  the  Report  of  the  Committee  of  Seven  already 
referred  to,  Henry  E.  Bourne's  The  Teaching  of  History 
and  Civics,  and  what  is  for  the  philosophy  of  the  subject 
the  most  useful  of  all,  Some  Principles  in  the  Teaching  of 

13 


194       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

History  by  Lucy  M.  Salmon.  As  the  last  is  in  pamphlet 
form  and  cannot  so  easily  be  obtained  in  England,  we 
venture  to  quote  from  it  passages  throwing  great  light  on 
the  subject,  and  valuable  not  only  in  reference  to  the  study 
of  history  in  America,  but  full  of  help  and  stimulus  to  the 
English  teacher. 

Moreover,  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  history,  like  many 
other  subjects,  is  in  the  curriculum  for  a  double  object — for  the 
direct  information  that  it  gives  and  for  its  help  in  mental  training. 

To  state  the  question  in  detail,  the  object  of  the  study  of 
history  on  its  educational  side  is  to  train  the  imagination,  to  use 
the  phrase  in  its  commonly  accepted  meaning,  during  the  period 
that  corresponds  roughly  to  the  primary  grade ;  it  is,  second,  to 
cultivate  enthusiasms  during  the  period  that  corresponds  to  the 
grammar  grade ;  it  is,  third,  to  secure  integration  of  facts  and  ideas 
during  the  high  school  period ;  it  is,  fourth,  to  train  the  judgment 
during  the  college  course  ;  it  is,  fifth,  to  foster  and  minister  to 
the  creative  spirit  during  the  university  and  subsequent  periods. 

The  historian  who  intelligently  and  critically  makes  use  of 
every  source  of  information  at  his  command,  and  then  tells  the 
truth  as  he  sees  it,  is  the  forerunner  of  the  intelligent  teacher 
who  bases  his  work  on  a  good  text-book  and  supplements  it  by 
constant  use  of  illustrative  material  drawn  from  literary  and 
monumental  sources. 

In  his  relations  with  his  class,  it  is  rather  the  function  of  the 
teacher  to  act  as  a  "middleman"  between  the  historian  and 
the  pupil. 

A  third  period  [nowadays]  in  the  teaching  of  history  has 
apparently  been  entered  on.  It  is  one  characterised  by  three 
controlling  ideas — that  the  text-book  is  indispensable  in  the 
teaching  of  history  when  used  as  a  servant  and  not  as  a  master ; 
that  history  cannot  be  reconstructed  in  the  classroom  through 
the  use  of  the  sources  by  immature  students  or  even  by  expert 
teachers ;  that  an  intelligent,  well-trained  teacher  with  a  know- 
ledge of  history,  with  an  enthusiastic  love  for  it,  with  the  truly 
historic  mind  which  Frederic  Harrison  says  "  is  the  mind  of  pro- 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       195 

found  sympathy  with  the  great  deeds  and  passionate  hopes  of  men 
in  the  past  ...  is  infinitely  more  potent  than  any  method  ",l 

It  is  hoped  that  this  imperfect  sketch  may  at  least 
afford  some  idea  of  what  is  to  be  seen  in  the  United  States 
by  a  teacher  of  history,  and  of  what  we  can  learn  from 
them.  Probably  there  is  more  to  be  learnt  in  this  subject 
by  English  students  of  American  education  than  in  any 
other,  and  the  study  is  the  more  interesting  and  profitable 
since  the  evolution  of  the  present  condition  of  history 
teaching  there  is  so  recent  The  present  writer  can  only 
say  that  she  has  heard  finer  history  teaching  in  more  than 
one  American  institution  than  she  ever  heard  in  England, 
though  her  experiences  here  have  been  fortunate,  and  that 
such  teaching  has  set  for  her  an  ideal  standard  of  profes- 
sional skill  in  our  difficult  art.  England  might  learn,  too, 
from  the  life  and  vigour  of  the  subject  in  the  common 
schools,  the  breadth  and  thoughtfulness  and  the  self-re- 
liance in  the  history  classes  of  secondary  schools,  and  the 
volume  and  power  of  the  historical  work  in  the  colleges 
and  technological  institutes. 

The  equipment  is  well  worth  our  imitation  if  only  we 
could  get  the  money  for  it.  Every  good  high  school  has 
a  room  or  rooms  for  the  history  lessons ;  cases  of  maps  to 
be  drawn  down  when  required — a  product  of  the  American 
skill  in  mechanical  appliances — are  universal,  and  an  average 
high  school  has  a  better  supply  of  these  maps  than  some 
of  our  colleges.  Pictures  of  every  sort  abound.2 

1  Lucy  M.  Salmon,  The  First  Year  Book  of  the  National  Society  for 
the  Scientific  Study  of  Education.  University  of  Chicago  Press,  1902. 

3  "  There  should  be  a  few  of  the  world's  great  faces,  Lincoln,  Gladstone, 
Bismarck,  Webster,  Pitt,  Washington,  Cromwell,  Queen  Elizabeth,  not 
selected  from  the  heroes  of  one  nation  or  one  period,  but  those  which  will 
lead  back  the  mind  over  the  long  road  of  human  achievement.  And  there 
should  be  pictures  of  several  historic  structures,  the  Parthenon,  the  Forum, 
Notre  Dame,  the  Walls  of  Nuremberg,  Westminster  Abbey,  Independence 
Hall,  and  Faneuil  Hall." 

13* 


196       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

The  teachers,  many  of  whom  have  been  in  Europe, 
seem  often  to  possess  private  collections  of  photographs ; 
the  optical  lantern  is,  of  course,  available  for  illustrations. 
Best  of  all  is  the  equipment  in  books — as  necessary  for  the 
study  of  history  as  a  laboratory  for  chemistry  or  physics. 
High  school  libraries  are  universal ;  the  history  section  is 
generally  the  best  fitted,  as  it  ought  to  be;  it  includes 
books  on  method  and  bibliography,  for  the  teacher  (largely 
American  publications,  for  very  few  are  of  English  origin), 
and  the  standard  books  of  reference.  The  requirements 
of  the  University  of  Wisconsin  for  accredited  schools 
demand  a  minimum  in  ancient  history  of  thirty-four  books, 
in  English  history  of  thirty,  and  the  "advised  lists"  are, 
of  course,  much  larger.  It  is  expected  that  the  American 
Historical  Review  will  be  taken  for  the  benefit  of  teachers, 
and  the  abundant  reprints  of  original  documents  issued  by 
American  societies,  like  the  Department  of  History  in  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  the  old  South  Church  Associa- 
tion of  Boston,  and  others,  are  available  for  the  pupils. 
We  have,  however,  one  advantage  in  England  for  the 
study  of  history  which  we  do  not  generally  realise,  since 
we  take  it  as  a  matter  of  course ;  it  was  brought  home  one 
day  by  the  pathetic  observation  of  an  American  teacher, 
when  admiration  was  expressed  for  the  richness  of  their 
equipment :  "  You  have  no  idea  how  difficult  it  is  to  get 
our  children  to  understand  what  is  meant  by  kings  and 
queens,  by  castles  and  cathedrals  ".  These,  which  are,  of 
course,  phenomena  well  within  the  experience  of  many 
English  children,  and  familiar  by  conversation  and  news- 
paper pictures  to  all,  are  remote  indeed  from  the  life  of 
the  American  child.  It  is  possible  that  the  devotion  of 
America  to  the  study  of  history  arises  from  an  innate 
longing  for  a  historical  background  in  thought  and  im- 
agination, since  it  is  absent  in  reality.  Biology  is  teaching 
us  more  and  more  in  this  age  how  we  are  the  product  of 


The  Teaching  of  History  in  Schools       197 

the  past,  and  how  instinctive  and  necessary  to  man  is  that 
reverence  for  what  has  come  down  to  him  from  his  fore- 
fathers, which  is  the  true  principle  of  conservatism.  A 
new  and  progressive  country  ever  looking  forward,  and 
abandoning  the  tools  and  the  methods  which  served  it 
yesterday,  must  restore  the  balance  somehow,  must  seek 
to  dwell  on  the  past  history  of  the  nation,  on  the  deeds  of 
its  heroes,  must  fulfil  the  saying  of  our  English  Founders' 
Day  Lesson,  "Let  us  now  praise  famous  men  and  our 
fathers  who  begat  us  ". 

It  may  be  asked  what  is  the  result  of  all  this  study  in 
the  teaching  of  history  on  American  life ;  it  is  too  soon 
as  yet  for  even  a  native  to  answer  this  question  adequately, 
but  there  are  some  observations  which  may  be  offered  in 
reply.  A  very  real  advance  is  being  made  in  research, 
new  material  is  being  acquired  and  catalogued,  and  much 
history  is  being  rewritten.  The  American  Historical  As- 
sociation is  carrying  on  a  wonderful  work  in  this  direction, 
in  which  women  are  taking  a  considerable  share;  public 
archives  are  being  preserved  and  classified,  public  opinion  is 
also  being  influenced,  and  civic  improvement  encouraged. 
It  is  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  leading  American  authorities 
on  the  teaching  of  history,  herself  a  distinguished  teacher, 
that  there  is  a  very  real  increase  of  intellectual  interest ; 
some  of  it  may  be  superficial,  but  it  is  at  least  widespread. 
A  nidus  has  been  formed  and  there  is  a  real  advance  in 
the  subject. 

In  England  we  have,  as  things  are,  the  tradition  of 
public  service  and  the  inner  instinct  of  patriotism  ;  formal 
teaching  of  civic  duty  is  not  so  much  needed  among  the 
wealthier  and  more  cultivated  classes,  though  more  ought 
to  be  done  than  is  done  in  the  public  elementary  schools, 
and  in  some  of  the  new  secondary  schools.  In  America 
this  sociological  teaching  given  in  connection  with  history 
is  the  one  thing  they  have  to  train  citizens  for  citizenship ; 


198       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

religious  instruction  has  been  excluded  from  their  school 
system,  personal  influence  and  corporate  life  play  but  little 
part  compared  with  the  powerful  one  they  play  here. 
There  is  no  universal  military  service  as  in  Germany  and 
France  to  teach  by  hard  experience  the  duty  and  the 
need  of  patriotism ;  the  tradition  of  unpaid  public  work 
so  strong  in  England  is  not  known  in  the  United  States. 
The  teaching  of  history  and  of  patriotism  through  history 
is  the  one  force  which  America  has  in  her  schools  and 
colleges  to  stimulate  and  train  the  sense  of  civic  duty. 
One  cannot  but  conclude  that  to  a  half-conscious  conviction 
of  this  truth  is  due  the  system,  the  earnestness,  the  concen- 
tration, and  the  excellence  that  America  achieves  in  the 
teaching  of  history  throughout  every  grade  of  her  educa- 
tion. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

HOME  ECONOMICS. 

DOMESTIC  SCIENCE  AND  ART  FOR  WOMEN  AND  GIRLS  IN  AMERICAN 
COLLEGES  AND  SCHOOLS. 

Lanam  fecit,  domi  mansit. — (Epitaph  on  a  Roman  matron.) 

THERE  is  no  question  in  women's  education  in  England 
to-day  which  is  so  living  and  so  important  as  that  of  home 
economics,  direct  preparation  at  school  and  college  of 
women  and  girls  for  household  duties  in  the  broadest  sense 
of  the  term.  In  America  the  movement  is  as  remarkable, 
though,  since  it  is  older,  it  is  not  now  quite  so  prominent 
in  the  field.  Much  of  the  work  of  rousing  public  opinion 
(on  which  English  reformers  are  now  engaged)  and  of 
moving  conservative  educational  institutions  has  there 
been  achieved  during  the  last  eight  or  ten  years,  since  the 
Lake  Placid  Club  at  Morningside,  New  York  State,  held 
its  first  conference  in  1899.  Indeed  the  principle  that 
American  education  is  at  a  farther  stage  of  evolution  than 
ours,  and  therefore  presents  us  with  examples  and  warn- 
ings, is  nowhere  more  true  than  in  home  economics.  They 
have  passed  the  stage  where  we  are,  and  the  work  they 
are  doing,  particularly  in  some  departments,  is  that  which 
we  are  about  to  do. 

However,  it  must  be  explained  that  the  movement  has 
developed  quite  differently  in  the  two  countries.  If  we 
take  each  section  of  education,  primary,  secondary,  uni- 
versity, and  technical,  we  find  that  in  England  the  move- 

199 


2OO      Impressions  of  American  Education  in    1908 

ment  has  affected  the  first  and  last ;  in  America,  while 
these  sections  have  also  been  influenced,  nothing  like  as 
much  has  been  done  as  in  England,  relatively.  It  is 
in  the  second  and  third  sections,  the  high  schools  and 
colleges,  that  they  are  so  much  in  advance  of  us,  and 
where  we  can  learn  so  very  much  from  them.  In  pro- 
gressive American  cities  the  teaching  of  the  domestic  arts 
to  girls  in  the  high  schools  is  much  more  fully  organised 
than  here.  In  the  college  and  university  stage  they  have 
gone  far,  even  to  research  degrees ;  we  have  done  nothing 
yet,  though  King's  College,  London,  begins  this  year  the 
first  college  course  for  women  in  England.  The  older  and 
more  conservative  women's  colleges  still  ignore  the  subject, 
or  even  look  down  on  it  as  not  of  true  academic  value. 
Vassar,  Wellesley,  and  Bryn  Mawr  are  there  in  the 
same  stage  as  Girton,  Newnham,  and  Somerville,  without 
the  reason  that  would  forbid  our  older  women's  colleges  to 
move,  [even  did  they  so  desire,]  their  dependence  on  the  re- 
gulations of  a  man's  university,  Cambridge  or  Oxford.  The 
American  separate  independent  women's  college  giving  its 
own  degrees  has  always  been  intended  for  liberal  education 
only,  like  Princeton  for  men,  and  has  no  professional  schools, 
law,  medicine,  architecture,  like  Harvard  or  Columbia  or 
Yale.  Naturally,  therefore,  they  do  not  follow  the  new 
movement  to  develop  what  is  essentially  a  professional 
school  for  women,  corresponding  to  the  engineering  schools 
for  men.  It  is  rather  the  co-educational  universities  with 
professional  schools,  like  Columbia,  Chicago,  and  Wiscon- 
sin, that  have  led  in  this  reform,  which  is  still  disliked  and 
suspected  by  some  conservative  authorities  in  women's 
education,  who  fear  that  liberal  studies  will  be  injured  by 
the  competition  of  technical  departments. 

It  is  the  work  in  domestic  economy  in  the  colleges  and 
universities  which  is  most  worthy  of  study  and  imitation 
by  English  education,  and  we  shall  therefore  begin  by  con- 


Home  Economics  201 

sidering  it.  Before  going  into  details,  it  may  be  well  to 
spend  a  few  lines  in  discussing  the  terminology,  which 
throws,  as  names  often  do,  a  searching  light  on  the  meaning 
and  purpose  of  the  thing.  The  English  expression,  the 
Domestic  Arts,  cannot  be  safely  used  in  America  for  two 
reasons :  first,  that  the  essential  characteristic  of  their  new 
movement  is  the  relation  of  domestic  subjects  to  the  under- 
lying scientific  principles,  all  the  university  courses  consist- 
ing largely  of  science,  physics,  chemistry,  bacteriology,  etc. ; 
secondly,  the  phrase  domestic  arts  is  there  used,  in  a  more 
limited  sense,  not  merely  for  the  teaching  of  sewing  but  of 
all  the  forms  of  needlecraft,  simple  weaving,  basket-work, 
etc. ;  this  is  done  in  close  connection  with  drawing,  brush- 
work,  design,  and  the  principles  of  art  proper  to  the  manual 
occupations  belonging  to  the  home.  The  teaching  of 
sewing  in  an  American  school  is  closely  correlated  with 
the  work  of  the  studio,  as  the  teaching  of  cooking  with  the 
work  of  the  laboratory.  This  correlation  is  one  of  the  most 
important  lessons  they  have  to  teach  us. 

Domestic  Science,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  proper  term 
in  America  for  the  study  of  the  household  arts  which  de- 
pend on  science,  that  is,  cookery,  laundry,  cleaning,  and 
household  management.  When  the  emphasis  is  placed 
more  fully  on  the  sociological  side  of  the  home,  on  manage- 
ment, sanitation,  economics,  as  well  as  on  the  preparation 
of  food,  the  phrase  household  administration  is  employed  ; 
this  is  the  custom  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  the  officers 
in  the  department  there  being  leaders  in  the  whole  move- 
ment. 

Home  Economics  is,  perhaps  on  the  whole,  the  most 
popular  expression,  and  the  most  accurate,  since  it  is  the 
most  inclusive ;  we  have  forgotten  the  original  meaning  of 
the  word  economy,  which  in  Greek  is  the  exact  word  for 
the  subject  Since  the  idea  of  the  home  is  essential,  the 
phrase  home  economics  will  probably  give  to  the  man  in 


2O2       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

the  street  the  most  accurate  idea  of  what  is  meant.  Colum- 
bia University  favours,  we  understand,  the  expression 
household  technology,  as  the  West  Riding  authorities  in 
England  the  simplest  phrase  of  all — housecraft.  Time 
alone  will  select  the  fitting  word. 

It  appears  that  college  women  have  had  a  good  deal  to 
do  with  the  genesis  of  this  movement  for  the  study  of 
home  economics.  About  twenty-five  years  ago  some  of 
these  ladies,  noticing  how  girls  were  going  into  factory  life, 
and  how  difficult  already  the  problems  of  housekeeping 
under  American  conditions  had  become  for  women  of  all 
classes,  began  to  move ;  to  ask  for  classes  in  the  chemistry 
of  cooking,  in  such  places  as  the  great  Massachusetts  In- 
stitute of  Technology,  and  to  attack  scientific  experimental 
work.  Text-books  were  written  on  sanitary  science  and 
similar  subjects ;  the  author  of  one  of  these,  Mrs.  Ellen 
Richards,  now  a  professor  in  the  Massachusetts  Institute, 
has  been,  and  still  is,  one  of  the  pioneers  of  this  work,  which, 
beginning  from  the  side  of  applied  physics  and  chemistry, 
has  considered  practical  housekeeping  from  the  scientific 
point  of  view.  The  Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnsetook 
up  the  cause  at  a  very  early  stage ;  especially  in  Boston. 
In  1887  a  wealthy  Boston  lady,  Mrs.  Hemingway, 
founded  the  Boston  School  of  Cookery,  which  has  trained 
many  of  the  teachers.  The  whole  movement  in  America, 
indeed,  began  at  the  top,  and  is  only  of  late  penetrating 
widely  into  the  common  schools.  Nine  years  ago  the 
movement  received  a  marked  impetus  through  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Lake  Placid  Conference  in  1899,  attended 
by  the  leaders  of  the  movement,  including  some  eminent 
men.  The  Conference  for  1901  issued  a  Report  giving  sylla- 
buses for  elementary  and  secondary  schools.  The  Confer- 
ence was  attended  by  Miss  Alice  Ravenhill,  who,  it  will  be 
remembered,  was  sent  out  by  the  Board  of  Education  in 
1901  to  study  the  teaching  of  domestic  economy  in 


Home  Economics  203 

America  ;  whose  well-known  and  valuable  Report  is  found 
in  the  Special  Reports  of  the  Board  of  Education,  vol.  xv. 
The  Lake  Placid  phrase — "  the  scientific  and  sociological 
study  of  the  home  " — might  be  considered  a  motto  for  the 
work.  It  is  perhaps  this  relation  with  sociology  and 
economics,  as  characteristic  university  studies  in  the  United 
States,  that  has  made  the  development  of  home  economics 
possible  in  American  universities. 

As  we  have  said,  the  University  of  Chicago  entitles  this 
department  that  of  household  administration.  The  Dean 
of  Women  there,  Miss  Marion  Talbot,  has  long  been  known 
as  a  leader  in  the  movement,  and  as  a  teacher  of  methods 
of  administration.  There  are  associated  with  her  a  number 
of  other  distinguished  teachers  who  offer  seventeen  courses 
of  instruction  of  university  standard  to  graduate  students, 
to  undergraduates  in  their  fourth,  and,  in  some  cases,  in 
their  third,  year.  These  courses  can  be  taken  as  part  of 
the  work  qualifying  for  a  degree.  The  official  circular 
states : — 

The  courses  in  this  department  are  planned  to  give  students 
(i)  a  general  view  of  the  place  of  the  household  in  society  as 
a  means  of  liberal  culture;  (2)  training  in  the  rational  and 
scientific  administration  of  the  home  as  a  social  unit ;  (3)  pre- 
paration to  serve  as  teachers  of  Home  Economics,  Domestic 
Science  and  Household  Arts,  or  as  social  workers  in  institutions 
whose  activity  is  largely  expressed  through  household  administra- 
tion. The  regular  courses  of  the  department  are  supplemented 
by  courses  offered  by  instructors  in  other  departments.  Special 
attention  is  called  to  the  courses  of  the  Departments  of  Socio- 
logy, Chemistry,  Zoology,  Physiology  and  Bacteriology,  and  to 
the  announcements  of  the  School  of  Education. 

Opportunities  are  afforded  for  gaining  practical  experience  in 
housekeeping,  lunch-room  management,  marketing,  household 
accounting  and  teaching.  There  are  frequent  occasions  for 
active  participation  in  such  philanthropic  work  as  supplements 


204      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

to  the  instruction  of  the  class-room.    One  fellowship  is  assigned 
to  the  department  for  1907-8. 

Appropriately  in  a  university,  and  in  such  a  centre  of 
sociological  problems  as  is  Chicago,  great  stress  is  laid  in 
the  courses  of  instruction  on  the  problems  of  markets,  the 
legal  and  economic  position  of  women,  food  supply,  and 
even  social  reform.  The  department  issues  a  most  interest- 
ing little  handbook  for  Chicago  housekeepers  on  the  laws 
affecting  the  household,  physical  safety,  the  protection  of 
health,  food  supply,  etc. 

Housekeeping  has  become  a  public  function.  So  intimate  is 
the  relationship  between  the  housekeeper  who  administers  the 
affairs  of  her  family  and  the  city  officer  who  administers  the 
affairs  of  the  larger  city  group,  that  it  has  seemed  advisable  to 
collect  for  her  information  the  laws  of  the  city  which  provide  for 
control  to  be  exercised  over  her  or  for  assistance  to  be  given  to 
her. 

It  would  be  very  helpful  if  similar  handbooks  could  be 
compiled  for  housekeepers  in  England.  One  of  the  in- 
structors in  the  University  department  is  a  lawyer,  the 
only  American  woman,  we  understand,  who  is  qualified 
to  be  a  judge. 

The  Western  State  Universities,  whose  original  intention 
was  largely  the  improvement  of  agriculture  and  other 
practical  industries,  have  naturally  taken  up  the  woman's 
side  of  those  essential  activities  on  which  a  pioneer  com- 
munity must  depend.  They  have  thus  established  de- 
partments for  home  economics,  and  issue  bulletins  on  food 
questions,  and  give  extension  teaching  on  cookery  and 
other  household  arts  to  the  farmers'  wives  and  daughters 
at  Farmers'  Institutes.  The  University  of  Illinois,  at 
Urbana,  has,  we  understand,  one  of  the  most  successful  of 
these  departments,  and  the  Southern  Universities  are  set- 
ting them  up  also.  The  teachers  are  taken  in  part  from 


Home  Economics  205 

first-rate  technical  institutes  like  the  Platt  Institute  in 
Brooklyn,  but  naturally  they  prefer  graduates,  if  they  can 
find  them,  who  possess  a  thorough  practical  knowledge. 
Teachers'  College  in  Columbia  University  has  established  a 
very  complete  system  for  the  training  of  these  teachers,  pro- 
viding even  post-graduate  work,  for  which  the  resources  of 
this  great  University  and  the  practical  economics  of  New 
York  City  itself  offer  great  opportunities.  As  in  Chicago, 
students  in  the  fourth  and  senior  year  of  the  ordinary 
college  course  can  take  part  of  their  work  for  a  degree  in 
the  special  courses  in  domestic  art  or  domestic  science  at 
Teachers'  College.  The  official  announcement  gives  full 
details,  which  are  too  elaborate  for  quotation,  as  to  the 
particular  courses  of  instruction  and  the  amount  of  related 
subjects  required.  Its  purpose  is  officially  described  as 
follows : — 

Heretofore,  while  economy  has  not  been  forgotten,  as  the 
subject  has  been  developed  for  teaching,  stress  has  been  laid  on 
the  application  of  science  in  nutrition  and  sanitation,  and  on  the 
improvement  of  the  household  arts.  Nothing,  however,  will 
fulfil  the  purpose,  but  a  formulation  inclusive  of  all  aspects  of 
household  management,  making  prominent  the  cost  of  living, 
cost  of  food  and  clothing,  division  of  income,  methods  of  pur- 
chase and  household  accountancy.  In  such  a  scheme  science 
would  be  applied  to  economic  ends,  and  nutrition  and  sanitation 
regarded  as  forms  of  economy.  The  Department  of  Domestic 
Science  in  Teachers'  College  aims  so  to  develop  the  subject  that 
sound  economy  is  the  key-note ;  and  also  to  study  the  difficult 
problems  of  its  teaching. 

The  circular  states  that  there  is  a  strong  demand  for 
teachers,  who  must,  however,  have  had  a  thoroughly  good 
general  education.  These  women,  if  not  candidates  for  a 
degree,  are  prepared  for  a  diploma  after  a  two  years',  in 
some  cases  a  one  year's,  course. 


206       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

The  subject  is  still  in  its  pioneer  stage,  and  its  growth  and 
permanency  in  education  depend  largely  upon  the  power  and 
training  of  the  women  engaged  in  teaching  it.  Women  of  broad 
education  and  thorough  special  training  are  in  demand;  and 
the  subject  is  of  such  importance  that  it  should  engage  the  at- 
tention of  strong  college  graduates,  seeking  for  a  field  of  useful- 
ness. 

The  department  also  provides  a  special  curriculum  in 
hospital  economics  at  the  request  of  the  American  Society 
of  Superintendents  of  Training  Schools  for  Nurses.  This 
is  either  a  one  or  two  years'  course.  These  are  to  pre- 
pare trained  nurses  to  teach  in  other  schools  for  nurses, 
and  to  manage  hospitals — another  instance  of  how  closely 
Columbia  is  in  touch  with  the  practical  needs  of  the  com- 
munity. 

English  people  can  perhaps  understand  the  connection 
of  a  great  university  with  the  training  of  nurses  and  of 
teachers  of  household  chemistry  and  administration  more 
easily  than  its  connection  with  the  teaching  of  sewing; 
nevertheless  Columbia  does  not  disdain  to  offer  training  for 
teachers  of  domestic  art.  This,  of  course,  is  part  of  the 
work  of  Teachers'  College.  The  Head  of  the  Department, 
Mrs.  Mary  Woolman,  is  one  of  the  best  known  American 
authorities  on  the  subject.  She  has  formed  for  the  depart- 
ment a  most  interesting  museum  showing  every  stage  of 
textile  work  and  needlecraft,  from  the  rude  products  of 
primitive  man  to  the  most  beautiful  embroidery  and  lace  of 
civilised  communities.  The  history  of  the  subject  and  its 
value  as  a  moral  influence  are  also  studied,  so  that  the 
whole  subject  is  made  liberal  and  educative,  not  treated  as 
a  mere  technical  craft 

The  scope  of  the  work  in  domestic  art  is  large.  It  considers 
the  place  of  the  household  arts  in  the  development  of  society  by 
a  study  of  their  primitive  condition,  their  evolution,  and  by  their 


Home  Economics  207 

present  relation  to  liberal  culture  and  to  advanced  civilisation, 
and  also  considers  the  use  which  may  be  made  of  these  arts 
in  the  work  of  elementary,  secondary  and  normal  schools, 
settlements  and  reformatories  where  they  have  been  intro- 
duced. 

In  the  last  ten  years  there  has  been  a  rapid  increase  in  the 
employment  of  the  household  arts  in  education.  Their  un- 
doubted practical  value  first  placed  them  in  the  curriculum,  but 
the  realisation  has  steadily  grown  that  they  have  also,  on  their 
cultural  and  sociological  sides,  a  service  to  perform  in  connect- 
ing the  home  with  the  school  and  in  illustrating  and  intensify- 
ing the  effect  of  the  purely  academic  studies. 

The  curriculum  includes  technical  courses,  principles  of 
education,  art  work,  and  certain  correlated  studies  such  as 
manual  training,  history,  and  mathematics. 

Technical  courses,  dealing  with  the  primitive  household  in- 
dustries, such  as  braiding,  netting,  basketry,  weaving  and  sewing, 
with  the  attendant  dyeing  and  cleansing  of  textiles,  and  such 
later  domestic  industries  as  the  foregoing,  together  with  drafting, 
pattern-modelling,  dressmaking,  millinery  and  embroidery.  The 
development  of  household  manufactures,  such  as  textiles,  with 
their  cultural  and  economic  effects ;  and  household  art, 
economics,  organisation  and  management. 

The  girls  In  the  Horace  Mann  High  School  take  do- 
mestic science  and  domestic  art  as  electives ;  the  lessons  are 
given  in  Teachers'  College  by  the  professors  and  instructors 
of  the  department  and  are  observed  by  the  students.  They 
are  characterised,  as  might  be  expected,  by  the  very  close 
connection  between  science  and  practice ;  for  example,  the 
girls  will  have  a  series  of  experiments  with  starch  using  the 
iodine  test,  the  microscope,  studying  the  structure  of  the 
starch  grain,  etc.,  and  then  they  have  some  lessons  on  the 
cooking  of  rice,  potatoes,  and  other  starchy  foods.  The  syl- 
labus of  the  whole  year  is  carefully  organised  in  this  way, 


208       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

theory  and  practice  going  together.  The  new  building 
will  accommodate  some  400  students  of  domestic  economy. 
The  demand  for  teachers  is  shown  by  the  Report  of  the  Ap- 
pointment Committee ;  seventy-eight  teachers  of  domestic 
art  were  demanded,  twenty-six  supplied.  For  teachers  of 
domestic  science  the  demand  was  120;  fifty-one  were  sup- 
plied by  Teachers'  College.  In  addition  twenty  hospital 
posts  were  filled.  It  is  possible  for  women  to  take  at 
Columbia  work  of  the  highest  university  standard,  leading 
to  the  M.A.  and  Ph.D.  degrees  in  Domestic  Science, 
including  advanced  work  in  the  chemistry  of  foods,  die- 
tetics, and  the  like,  and  research  work  on  some  of  the 
many  problems  awaiting  investigation. 

The  separate  women's  college,  as  we  have  said,  has  not 
established  courses  in  home  economics ;  to  compensate, 
Simmons  College,  in  Boston,  has  been  recently  established, 
being,  as  its  officials  say,  the  first  real  women's  college. 
The  money  was  left  by  the  founder  for  an  institution  which 
should  train  educated  women  to  earn  a  living ;  it  has  re- 
ceived a  charter  giving  power  to  confer  the  B.Sc.  degree, 
and  appointing  as  its  governors  distinguished  educational 
leaders  in  Boston.  They  are  seeking  to  solve  the  problem, 
"  What  kind  of  college  do  women  need  to  prepare  them 
for  their  special  duties  ? "  Naturally,  a  course  in  home 
economics  has  been  established ;  it  includes,  as  we  see,  a 
great  deal  of  science. 

FOUR-YEAR  PROGRAMMES  FOR  DEGREE  :  TWO  TYPES. 

First  Year.  First  Year. 

Chemistry.  Chemistry. 

English.  English. 

History.  History. 

Household  Management.  Household  Management. 

Accounts.  Accounts. 

Physics.  Physics. 


Second  Year. 
Biology. 
Biology. 
Chemistry. 
Chemistry. 
Cooking. 
English. 
Housebuilding. 

Third  Year. 

Biology. 

Biology. 

Chemistry. 

Cooking. 

Economics. 

Psychology. 

Fourth  Year. 
Biology. 
Dietaries. 
Foods. 
Ethics. 

Social  Science. 
Electives. 


Second  Year. 
Biology. 
Biology. 
Chemistry. 
Cooking. 
Housebuilding. 
Sewing  and  Design. 


Third  Year. 

Biology. 

Cooking. 

Economics. 

English. 

Sewing. 

Psychology. 

Fourth  Year. 
Biology. 
Dietaries. 
Foods. 
Ethics. 

Social  Science. 
Electives. 


The  admission  requirements  are  those  for  the  ordinary 
matriculation,  including  a  certain  amount  of  school  science 
work,  which  is  continued  at  college,  where  the  standards 
in  physics  and  chemistry  appear  to  be  really  high.  Eng- 
lish history  and  economics  are  also  compulsory  in  the 
course,  so  that  the  women  students  receive  the  humanistic 
training  which  is  necessary  for  woman's  work  in  the  home, 
and  for  her  influence  on  the  nation.  The  college,  however, 
does  not  limit  itself  to  degree  students ;  there  are  courses 
for  nurses,  housekeepers  and  others,  consisting  chiefly  of 
technical  subjects.  There  is  also  very  careful  instruction 
in  domestic  art,  the  equipment  including  apparatus  for 
weaving  and  for  the  study  of  textiles. 

Simmons  College  is  a  magnificent  new  building  in  the 
Fenway,  Boston,  and  its  staff  has  been  very  carefully 


2io       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

chosen  from  experienced  and  brilliant  teachers  ;  so  far  as 
one  could  judge  the  intellectual  standards  are  those  of  what 
we  should  call  college  work,  and  the  atmosphere  and  life 
of  the  place,  including  two  delightful  hostels  for  resident 
students,  give  it  the  additional  attraction  of  what  we  in 
England  generally  mean  by  college  life.  An  English 
girl  from  a  good  high  school,  who  had  reached  the  matri- 
culation standard,  might  well  be  recommended  to  go  to 
Simmons  College,  as  young  English  engineers  go  to  the 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology ;  we  have,  as  yet, 
nothing  like  it  in  this  country. 

As  stated  in  Chapter  I.,  the  teaching  of  practical  arts  was 
not  originally  included  in  the  scheme  of  high  school  work  ; 
the  girls,  as  in  England,  were  supposed  to  learn  these  arts 
at  home  from  their  mothers,  but,  as  in  England,  it  has  been 
found  that  under  modern  conditions  the  home  does  not 
always  give  this  instruction.  Furthermore,  the  movement 
for  manual  training  for  boys,  which  began  in  St.  Louis  a 
good  many  years  ago,  and  which  led  to  the  foundation  of 
Manual  Training  High  Schools,  brought  about,  where  co- 
education prevailed,  the  inclusion  of  domestic  science  and 
domestic  arts  for  girls  in  the  High  School  course,  corre- 
sponding with  the  carpentry,  metal  work,  forging  and 
fitting  that  boys  do.  As  a  matter  of  course,  whenever  in 
the  time-table  these  subjects  and  the  mechanical  drawing 
correlated  with  them  occur  (generally  for  one  and  a  half 
hours,  a  double  period),  one  finds  that  the  girls  go  off  to 
sewing,  dress-cutting  and  dressmaking  (the  use  of  the  sew- 
ing-machine being  allowed),  cookery  and  hygiene ;  laundry 
is  rarely  met  with  in  the  high  school.  Millinery,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  a  common,  and  naturally  a  very  popular, 
subject.  It  must  be  understood  that  not  every  high  school 
gives  this  instruction  ;  a  manual  training  high  school  does, 
and  in  St.  Louis,  New  York,  and  elsewhere,  departments 
for  these  subjects  are  found  in  the  ordinary  high  schools  ; 


Home  Economics  21 1 

but  as  a  rule  schools  that  prepare  largely  for  college,  like 
the  Philadelphia  Girls'  High  School  and  the  Wadleigh 
High  School  in  New  York,  have  no  domestic  art  or 
domestic  science.  Indeed,  there  is  no  time  for  it,  if 
college  entrance  requirements  have  to  be  fulfilled  ;  so  far, 
manual  training  subjects  are  not  acknowledged  for  college 
entrance  except  in  a  very  small  degree  in  some  Western 
Universities. 

The  equipment  is,  of  course,  good ;  the  cookery-room 
is  arranged  on  a  plan  now  becoming  known  in  England, 
and  carried  out,  we  believe,  in  the  Leeds  Girls'  Grammar 
School,  where  each  student  has  her  own  gas-ring  and  her 
own  cooking  pots  and  pans,  much  as  in  a  chemical  labora- 
tory. "  Agate "  hollow-ware  of  American  manufacture 
was  generally  considered  best.  The  blue  and  white 
enamelled  hollow-ware  we  use  was  considered  bad,  and 
ordinary  iron  saucepans  quite  ridiculous.  The  places 
are  arranged  round  three  sides  of  a  square  at  a  counter 
about  two  feet  wide,  covered  with  some  clean,  heat-resisting 
material,  glass,  marble,  various  cement  compositions  and 
the  like,  with  the  gas-stoves  and  their  pipes  arranged  along 
the  inside  edge  of  the  counter.  The  space  underneath 
each  student's  place  is  cunningly  fitted  with  cupboards 
and  racks  for  her  apparatus ;  the  teacher  demonstrates 
at  her  blackboard  and  table,  which  fill  up  the  fourth 
side  of  the  square,  while  the  students  sit  and  look  on  from 
their  places  where  they  work.  While  they  are  working, 
the  teacher  walks  round  inside  the  square,  and  thus  can 
easily  control  and  supervise  twenty-four  pupils,  possibly 
even  twenty-seven.  All  this  is  clearly  a  much  better  plan 
than  the  English  one  of  a  gallery  at  one  end  for  demon- 
stration, and  ordinary  kitchen  tables  at  the  other  end 
where  the  pupils  stand,  and  two  or  three  big  gas-stoves 
or  ranges.  The  American  cooking-room  has,  however, 
proper  kitchen  stoves  with  ovens,  excellent  cupboards 

14* 


212       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

and  other  fitments,  and  a  full  allowance  of  sinks.  A 
laundry  for  teaching  is  planned  in  the  same  way,  the  tubs 
being  arranged  round  three  sides  of  a  square  ;  these  are 
of  the  white  or  creamy  composition  or  earthenware  of 
which  the  modern  bath-tubs  are  made,  and  have  each 
their  own  taps  for  hot  and  cold  water,  and,  of  course,  each 
its  own  waste-pipe ;  the  pipes  being  on  the  inside  of  the 
square. 

It  is  considered  essential  in  a  domestic  science  course 
that  the  girls  or  students  should  prepare  and  serve  actual 
meals,  and  next  to  the  cookery-room  there  is  always  a 
small  dining  parlour  as  in  an  ordinary  house,  with  proper 
furniture,  glass,  china  and  other  requirements,  where  the 
girls  periodically  serve  dinners  they  have  designed  and 
prepared.  Members  of  the  staff  and  friends  are  invited, 
and  the  students  take  it  in  turns  to  act  hostess,  cook,  and 
parlour-maid.  Everything  is  carried  out  in  the  exquisite, 
artistic,  and  dainty  fashion  American  ladies  follow  in  their 
own  houses. 

In  the  needlework  a  visitor  sees  clearly  the  importance 
of  the  correlation  of  the  teaching  with  art.  We  were 
shown  again  and  again  in  all  sorts  of  schools  and  institu- 
tions most  beautiful  underwear  in  delicate  materials,  de- 
signed and  embroidered  as  well  as  made  by  the  girls 
themselves.  The  American  girl  shows  her  taste  in  dress 
and  her  high  standard  of  self-respect  over  her  school 
needlework  as  well  as  her  school  attire  and  deportment. 

In  St  Louis  the  allotment  of  time  to  home  economics 
is  worth  noticing  ;  the  girls  give  ten  double  periods  a  fort- 
night, that  is  an  average  of  ten  lessons  a  week.  In  the 
first  and  second  years  they  take  sewing  and  dressmaking, 
in  the  third  year  domestic  science  (cookery),  and  in  the 
fourth  year  home  economics  and  laundry.  We  were  told 
that  40  per  cent,  of  the  girls  in  the  school  take  this  manual 
training  course. 


Home  Economics  213 

One  of  the  best  places  to  study  the  relation  of  art  to 
home  economics  is  the  Brookline  High  School,  where 
embroidery,  original  design,  and  arts  and  crafts  generally, 
have  received  considerable  attention ;  here,  as  elsewhere, 
wood-block  stamping,  and  stencil  designs  for  curtains  and 
other  draperies,  are  studied  and  carried  out  by  the  girls 
themselves.  One  is  not  surprised  at  the  artistic  arrange- 
ment of  American  homes  of  a  modest  type  when  one  sees 
in  school  after  school  the  way  that  the  application  of  art 
to  the  home  is  taught;  America,  indeed,  is  rapidly  be- 
coming, so  far  as  her  women  are  concerned,  an  artistic 
nation.  The  course  in  home  economics  in  the  Brookline 
High  School  occupies  four  periods  a  week  throughout. 
In  the  first  year  elementary  heat,  the  chemistry  of  cooking 
and  easy  cookery  is  taken ;  in  the  second  year  more 
difficult  chemistry,  and  cooking  and  cleaning,  food  and 
dietaries ;  in  the  third  year  house  sanitation,  drawing  and 
art,  all  correlated  with  physics  ;  in  the  fourth  year  bacterio- 
logy, simple  nursing  and  economics.  Characteristic  of  the 
methods  of  study  are  the  use  of  text-books,  some  of  which 
have  been  written  by  the  Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae 
and  by  Mrs.  Richards  and  other  Boston  ladies,  and  the 
development  by  pupils  of  topics  such  as  the  Brookline 
water  supply,  the  system  of  plumbing  in  the  Brookline 
High  School,  child  labour,  and  the  like. 

The  elementary  school  has  been  the  last  to  feel  the  in- 
fluence of  these  new  methods,  and  even  yet  it  is  only  in 
the  more  progressive  places  that  sewing  and  cookery  are 
included  in  the  common  school  course.  "  While  there  is 
a  growing  appreciation  of  such  work  in  the  schools,  as 
evidenced  by  its  introduction  in  many  new  places,  there  is 
also  a  sceptical  attitude  in  the  minds  of  many  as  to  its 
value,  a  tendency  to  class  it  among  fads,  to  regard  it  as  one 
more  of  the  new  subjects  that  are  overcrowding  the  curricu- 
lum." At  the  date  of  the  first  Lake  Placid  Conference,  1 899, 


214       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

it  was  stated  that  only  in  fifty  cities  (Anglice  towns)  were 
sewing  and  cookery  included ;  Boston,  of  course,  is  among 
these,  Philadelphia  has  special  sewing  teachers,  and  nearly 
twenty  cookery  teachers.  The  rule  of  the  Boston  School 
Committee  is  as  follows :  "  Pupils  of  twelve  years  of  age  or 
older  may  be  admitted  to  classes  in  woodworking,  cookery 
and  sewing  with  the  approval  of  the  assistant  superintend- 
ent in  charge".  One  of  the  most  advanced  districts  in 
education  has  long  been  the  town  of  Brookline,  Mass.,  a 
suburb  of  Boston,  where  some  years  ago,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  the  then  superintendent,  Mr.  Samuel  Button, 
and  the  then  Principal  of  the  High  School,  Mr.  D.  Sanford, 
many  reforms,  including  manual  training  and  fine  art  work, 
were  introduced  into  the  public  schools.  In  the  Brook- 
line  grammar  grades  the  home  economics  course  is 
as  follows :  VI.  Grade,  over  eleven  years  of  age :  house 
work  one  hour  a  week,  including  dish-washing,  easy  laundry 
work  and  cleaning,  and  preparation  of  vegetables  and 
fruits.  VII.  Grade,  over  twelve  years  of  age  :  cooking  two 
hours  a  week  for  a  half-year,  temperature,  stewing  of  dried 
fruit,  study  of  milk,  fat,  albumen  (cooking  of  eggs),  starch 
(cooking  of  starch  foods),  bread-making.  VIII.  Grade, 
over  thirteen  years  of  age :  cooking  two  hours  per  week, 
meat  and  fish,  soup,  bread,  rolls,  puddings,  etc.  IX.  Grade, 
over  fourteen  years  of  age :  cookery  one  hour  per  week 
for  half  a  year,  pastry  and  fancy  dishes,  invalid  cookery. 

In  the  new  education,  as  we  have  said,  the  Dewey  ideas 
that  the  child  should  follow  the  life  of  the  race  imply  that 
very  primitive  cooking  should  be  part  of  the  curriculum, 
even  in  the  first  and  second  grades,  ages  six  to  seven,  and 
that  weaving  and  sewing,  and  more  elaborate  cookery, 
should  come  in  in  the  later  years.  In  the  University  Ele- 
mentary School  at  Chicago  we  saw  children  of  six  and 
seven  making  cocoa  in  the  cookery-room,  very  carefully 
and  happily.  The  importance  of  this  work  in  developing 


Home  Economics 


215 


arithmetical  ideas  is  considerable ;  weights  and  measures, 
and  the  idea  of  ratio  and  proportion,  on  which  so  much 
depends  later,  are  taught  practically,  or  rather  are  dis- 
covered by  the  child  itself,  and  the  foundation  of  arithmetic, 
thus  practically  laid,  remains  sound.  There  is,  indeed,  a 
very  close  connection  between  the  new  education  and  the 
teaching  of  home  economics  in  school ;  it  carries  out  for 
girls  one  aspect  of  the  principle  that  school  is  life,  not 
merely  a  preparation  for  life. 

The  work  of  the  various  technical  institutes,  which  are 
private,  not  public,  in  the  American  sense,  is  of  three 
kinds :  teaching  for  home  life,  and  for  girls  and  women 
who  have  left  school  and  are,  e.g.,  learning  to  make  their 
own  clothes  and  trim  their  own  hats  ;  trade  work,  that 
for  intending  dressmakers,  cooks  and  even  housekeepers ; 
and  training  teachers.  This  latter  is  less  regular  and 
systematised  than  with  us;  we  understand  that  some 
English  authorities,  familiar  with  the  work  of  our  technical 
colleges  and  polytechnics  recognised  by  the  Board  of 
Education,  consider  American  institutions  nothing  like  as 
good  as  the  English  ones.  Their  courses  are  certainly 
shorter,  one  or  two  years,  instead  of  two  or  three,  and,  as 
more  time  is  given  to  correlated  art  and  science,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  such  very  high  technical  skill  may  not  always  be 
secured  ;  of  this  the  writer  cannot  judge.  Whatever  the 
experts  may  think,  it  is  clear  to  the  ordinary  observer  that 
a  great  deal  of  sound  work  with  thought  and  intelligence 
and  zeal  is  given,  and  that  the  results  are  excellent.  The 
teachers  do  know  their  business,  and  the  objects  produced, 
whether  clothing  or  food,  are  good  of  their  kind.  The 
technical  institutes  also  provide  for  younger  students  who 
do  not  intend  to  be  teachers. 

The  Drexel  Institute,  in  Philadelphia,  does  a  great  deal 
of  excellent  work  in  this  way.  Some  of  the  classes,  of 
course,  in  such  institutes  are  intended  definitely  for  trade 


2i6      Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

purposes,  and  in  some  cases  it  was  not  at  all  clear  whether  a 
girl  was  learning  millinery,  for  example,  to  please  herself 
or  to  take  it  up  as  a  trade.  In  Philadelphia  there  is  no 
manual  training  high  school  for  girls ;  the  Drexel  Institute 
has,  however,  developed  a  very  fine  junior  course  for  young 
girls  who  might  otherwise  be  in  the  High  School.  The 
time  taken  is  two  years  and  the  pupils  are  from  fifteen  to 
seventeen  years  of  age.  "  The  junior  course  is  a  non-pro- 
fessional course  of  prescribed  studies  for  girls,  and  is  de- 
signed (i)  to  supply  that  training  for  the  duties  and 
responsibilities  of  home  life  which  the  ordinary  academic 
education  fails  to  give ;  (2)  to  lay  a  broad  and  solid  founda- 
tion for  the  technical  work  involved  in  the  direct  prepara- 
tion for  a  profession  or  a  skilled  occupation.  The  course 
of  instruction  covers  two  years."  The  girls  learn  English, 
mathematics  and  history,  as  well  as  cookery,  elementary 
household  management,  sewing,  drawing  and  dressmaking. 

The  normal  course  in  domestic  science  at  the  Drexel 
Institute  is  also  for  two  years,  and  is  limited  to  students 
over  twenty;  it  includes  physiology,  sanitation  and  do- 
mestic architecture,  and  there  are  also,  as  usual,  courses 
for  nurses  and  housekeepers.  So  popular  is  the  work  that 
the  buildings  are  crowded,  and  the  pupils  have  had  to 
overflow  into  an  annexe.  Philadelphia  needs  a  special 
building,  like  that  which  has  just  been  given  to  Teachers' 
College  in  New  York,  entirely  devoted  to  the  teaching  of 
the  domestic  arts.  The  Drexel  has  304  women  and  girls 
attending  in  the  department. 

The  Pratt  Institute,  in  Brooklyn,  New  York,  is  known 
all  over  the  United  States,  and  teachers  trained  there  are 
welcome  everywhere.  "  It  was  established  in  1887  after 
many  years  of  investigation  on  the  subject  of  technical 
education  on  the  part  of  its  founder,  Mr.  Charles  Pratt,  of 
Brooklyn.  Its  object  is  to  promote  manual  and  industrial 
education,  as  well  as  to  instruct  in  science  and  art,  to  in- 


Home  Economics  217 

culcate  habits  of  industry  and  thrift,  and  to  foster  all  that 
makes  for  right  living  and  good  citizenship.  The  Institute 
has  a  liberal  endowment  which  enables  it  to  secure  the 
best  talent  and  facilities  for  the  accomplishment  of  its  aims. 
Receipts  from  tuition  and  all  other  sources  are  used  to  fur- 
ther and  advance  the  work."  It  has  many  full-time  courses 
for  trade  use,  and  many  evening  classes ;  the  Department 
of  Domestic  Arts  contains  570  women.  An  English  lady 
has  recently  been  made  head  of  this  department.  Its 
characteristic  is  the  close  relation  of  art  with  needlework, 
helped  by  the  beautiful  museum  the  Institute  possesses. 
"  The  emphasis  in  this  department  is  on  the  art  side  of 
technical  work.  To  this  end,  design  in  constructive  work 
is  made  equal  in  importance  to  excellence  of  technique." 
The  Department  of  Domestic  Science  contains  334  women. 
"  The  courses  of  the  department  are  designed  to  train 
women  to  be  instructors  in  domestic  science  and  elemen- 
tary domestic  art,  or  to  be  dietitians,  matrons,  profes- 
sional housekeepers,  probationary  trained  nurses,  practical 
housekeepers  or  home-makers."  The  course  for  teachers 
lasts  two  years ;  candidates  must  be  at  least  eighteen  years 
of  age,  and  have  completed  a  four  years'  course  in  a  high 
school,  including  elementary  physiology,  physics  and 
chemistry,  as  well  as  algebra  and  geometry ;  some  prac- 
tical facility  in  cooking,  cleaning  and  sewing  is  also  re- 
quired. The  course  of  study  is  as  follows  : — 

COURSE    OF    STUDY. 

First   Year. 

Fall  Term.  Winter  Term.  Spring  Term. 

Psychology  Psychology  Psychology 

Chemistry  Chemistry  Chemistry 

Physiology  Physiology  Physiology 

Cookery  Cookery  Cookery 

Drawing  Drawing  Design 

Handwork  Handwork  Sewing 

Nature  Study  Sewing  Nature  Study 

Physical  training  Physical  training  Physical  training 


21 8       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


Fall  Term. 

History  of  Education 
Science  of  Education 
Methods 

Practice-teaching 
Chemistry 
Bacteriology 
Hygiene 
Cookery 

Marketing  and  Accounts 
Construction 
Physical  training 


Second  Year. 

Winter  Term. 
History  of  Education 
Science  of  Education 
Methods 

Practice-teaching 
Chemistry 
Heat 

Sanitation 
Cookery 

Dietetics  and  Serving 
Sewing 
Physical  training 


Spring  Term. 
History  of  Education 
Science  of  Education 
Methods 

Practice-teaching 
Chemistry 
Heat 

Household  Economics 
Cookery 
Laundry-work 
Handwork 
Physical  training 


All  subjects  indicated  are  not  invariably  pursued  simul- 
taneously. 

In  conclusion,  it  should  be  noted  that  there  is  one  feature 
of  this  teaching  which  is  specially  worthy  of  imitation  by 
English  colleges  and  technical  institutions — the  very  care- 
ful training  of  institutional  housekeepers,  women  of  good 
general  education,  at  least  twenty-five  years  of  age,  and 
having  some  practical  knowledge,  for  posts  as  managers, 
organisers,  housekeepers  in  college  hostels,  nurses'  homes, 
boarding-schools,  and  other  public  institutions.  In  Eng- 
land too  often  food  arrangements  in  such  co-operative 
housekeeping  are,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  unsatisfactory ; 
sometimes  authorities  in  England  seem  to  consider  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  housekeeping  on  a  large  scale  cannot 
be  as  economical,  as  comfortable,  and  as  dainty  as  that  of 
the  home.  In  America,  as  we  have  seen,  college  women 
have  been  obliged  to  direct  their  trained  intelligence  and 
their  scientific  knowledge  to  the  problems  of  efficient, 
well-directed,  thrifty  house  management,  whether  on  a 
small  or  a  large  scale.  It  was  difficult  to  find  skilled 
domestic  help;  cultivated  women  had  to  do  their  own 
housework,  and  they  found  specialised  training  necessary. 
We  were  informed,  too,  that  the  needs  of  preserving  the 
health  of  girls  at  college  had  obliged  the  institutions  to 


Home  Economics  219 

maintain  a  very  high  standard  of  economic  yet  attractive 
housekeeping.  ("  If  the  food  were  not  well-cooked  and 
varied,  the  girls  wouldn't  eat  it.")  English  people  who 
have  met  only  the  rich  and  luxurious  idlers  of  hotels 
think  sometimes  that  American  ladies  cannot  keep  house. 
This  is  a  great  mistake ;  they  possess  a  traditional  skill 
and  interest  in  the  subject,  whether  in  the  old  New  Eng- 
land homes,  the  plantations  and  mansions  of  Southern 
families,  or  under  the  pioneer  conditions  of  the  West.  To 
this  they  have  added,  to  meet  American  needs,  this  very 
careful  study  of  the  scientific  basis  of  housekeeping,  of 
food  values,  home  architecture,  and  household  adminis- 
tration. 

The  proof  of  the  pudding  is  the  eating ;  extraordinary 
is  the  success  of  institutional  housekeepers  in  college  hos- 
tels, women's  clubs,  or  in  modest  private  houses,  where 
women  trained  under  the  new  conditions  are  in  command, 
or  where  they  may  even  do  much  of  the  work  with  their 
own  hands.  As  one  passed  from  school  to  school,  college 
to  college,  and  entered  the  homes  of  those  teachers  who 
extended  to  a  professional  sister  from  beyond  the  seas 
their  graceful  and  gracious  hospitality,  one  admired  more 
and  more  the  result  of  a  combination  of  native  capacity, 
traditional  skill  and  modern  scientific  study  in  that  most 
necessary  and  ancient  of  women's  occupations — keeping 
house. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

COMMERCIAL  EDUCATION— MORE  PARTICULARLY  FOR 
GIRLS. 

Reading  maketh  a  full  man,  conference  a  ready  man,  and  writing  an 
exact  man. — BACON. 

THE  public  educational  system  of  America  has  not  hitherto 
inclined  as  much  to  the  technical  side  as  has  ours.  When 
the  history  of  the  development  of  our  system  comes  to  be 
written  it  will  attach  great  importance  to  the  influence  of 
such  movements  as  those  that  led  to  the  Science  and  Art 
Departments  at  South  Kensington,  the  Technical  Instruc- 
tion Acts,  the  Technical  Education  Committees  of  our 
County  and  City  Councils,  the  foundation  of  Polytechnics 
and  the  like,  which  have  left  their  trace  in  the  existence  of 
a  separate  Technical  Department  in  the  Board  of  Educa- 
tion at  Whitehall.  There  has  been  nothing  like  this 
technical  movement  in  America ;  their  education  began  by 
being  liberal  and  general,  and  only  of  late  years  has  be- 
come conspicuously  technical  so  far  as  the  public  system 
is  concerned.  Perhaps  the  most  striking  phenomenon  in 
American  education  at  this  moment,  however,  is  the  de- 
mand for  the  industrial  training  of  young  people  between 
fourteen  and  seventeen,  a  movement  deriving  much  of  its 
strength  from  Massachusetts,  the  leading  manufacturing 
State  of  the  Union. 

Commercial  education  is  a  much  older  thing.  It  appears 
to  have  begun  before  1850  by  private  persons  who,  as  a 
matter  of  business,  taught  young  men  how  to  be  clerks  in 
the  quickest  way ;  in  the  'fifties  there  were  about  a  dozen 

220 


Commercial  Education  221 

of  these  private  commercial  schools  in  the  large  cities,  the 
entire  instruction  often  being  given  by  one  man.  The 
history  of  the  subject  is  obscure;  in  the  Monograph  on 
Commercial  Education  (No.  13  in  the  Paris  Exposition 
Series,  1900)  by  Edmund  James,  Professor  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Chicago,  a  full  account  is  there  given  so  far  as  is 
known.1 

These  schools  were  originally  intended  only  for  men,  but 
since  women  have  been  increasingly  employed  in  America 
as  clerks,  book-keepers,  amanuenses,  they  naturally  availed 
themselves  of  the  ad  vantages  offered.  The  place  and  work 
of  these  schools  may  be  summarised  as  follows  from  Pro- 
fessor James's  Monograph : — 

The  annual  tuition  fee  varies  in  the  better  schools  from  $50 
C£io)  to  $150  (^30)  and  even  $200  (^40)  for  a  school  year 
of  ten  months.  The  payment  of  such  fees  by  men  and  women 
who  have  to  earn  their  own  living  at  comparatively  low  salaries 
testifies  eloquently  to  the  value  which  they  themselves  set  upon 
the  instruction  which  they  receive. 

It  is  perfectly  safe  to  say  that  in  the  quality  of  the  work  which 
they  do,  and  in  the  equipment  for  this  particular  work,  the 
American  commercial  colleges  have  no  rivals.  They  are  as 
much  superior  to  anything  of  the  sort  to  be  found  elsewhere  in 
the  world  as  are  the  American  schools  of  dentistry  to  their 
counterparts — and  for  very  much  the  same  reason,  viz.,  that 
they  are  engaged  largely,  one  may  say  chiefly,  in  the  mechanical 
work  in  which  Americans  excel  the  rest  of  the  world.  They  are 
not  educational  institutions  in  any  broad  sense  of  the  term  at 

1  "  The  department  of  such  instruction  which  has  made  the  most  pro- 
nounced progress  is  that  of  the  so-called  commercial  college,  i.e.,  the 
elementary  technical  school  intended  to  prepare  pupils  for  clerical  work. 
It  is  not  known,  as  will  be  seen  later,  exactly  when  such  work  was  begun 
in  the  United  States  or  by  whom  or  where,  and  the  facts  about  the  sub- 
sequent development  are  difficult  to  ascertain ;  indeed,  one  may  say  it 
would  be  impossible  for  any  one  person  to  collect  the  facts  necessary  to 
enable  one  to  treat  the  subject  historically  in  a  thoroughly  satisfactory 
way." 


222       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

all.  They  are  trade  schools  pure  and  simple,  and  that  in  a 
very  narrow  sense.  They  train  for  facilities.  Of  course  all 
training  has  intellectual  results,  even  that  of  the  prize-fighter. 
But  the  commercial  college  aims  not  to  train  the  best  book- 
keepers or  stenographers,  for,  to  such,  a  high  degree  of  educa- 
tion is  necessary,  but  to  take  the  boy  or  man  as  he  is,  with  or 
without  education,  stupid  or  bright,  and  make  as  good  a  book- 
keeper or  stenographer  out  of  him  as  is  possible,  by  simply 
superadding  a  brief  technical  training. 

The  writer  did  not  study  or  visit  any  of  these  institutions, 
since  her  own  problems  were  not  those  of  the  trade  school ; 
but  for  some  years  she  has  been  responsible  for  the  initia- 
tion in  an  English  high  school  of  a  Secretarial  or  Com- 
mercial Department,  combining  general  and  technical 
education  between  fifteen  and  eighteen  years  of  age.  The 
Commercial  Public  High  School  of  America,  therefore,  was 
to  her  the  institution  particularly  worthy  of  study ;  during 
the  last  ten  or  twelve  years  it  has  developed  in  a  remark- 
able and  interesting  way,  and  has  become  a  serious  rival 
of  the  "  Business  College".  The  movement  began  in  the 
Public  Schools  system  some  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago  by 
-the  introduction  of  a  commercial  course,  differing  little  from 
other  courses  except  by  the  introduction  of  some  shorthand, 
book-keeping  and  typewriting.  The  course  was  often 
only  two  or  three  years  in  length,  was  distinctly  inferior  to 
other  courses,  and  was,  indeed,  a  kind  of  imitation  of  the 
private  business  school,  or  a  compromise  between  it  and 
the  regular  high  school  course.  In  1893  it  was  interesting 
to  notice  the  place  that  these  courses  held.  The  principals 
of  high  schools  then  seemed,  in  some  cases,  half  ashamed 
of  them  ;  they  were  clearly  looked  upon  as  a  sop  to  Cer- 
berus. To-day  the  whole  situation  is  very  different  from 
what  it  was  fifteen  years  ago ;  the  men  who  have  grown  up 
to  headship  since  then  proudly  explain  to  inquiring  visitors 
their  organisation  and  methods  of  commercial  education. 


Commercial  Education  223 

During  this  period  the  earlier  courses  have  been  remo- 
delled, extended,  and  enriched,  so  as  to  give  them  distinct 
educational  value,  comparable  with  that  of  the  older  clas- 
sical or  scientific  courses,  though  still,  as  they  must  needs 
be,  largely  technical,  and  so  to  conservative  thinkers 
inferior. 

Where  there  is  real  enthusiasm  for  this  new  development, 
separate  business  or  commercial  high  schools  have  been 
founded,  like  the  Manual  Training  High  Schools,  clearly 
differentiated  from  the  other  high  schools  of  the  city, 
housed  in  buildings  specially  designed  and  equipped,  and 
officered  by  a  separate  body  of  teachers  zealous  to  show 
that  their  subjects  could  be  made  as  educational  and  valu- 
able as  the  older  curricula.  The  provision  of  this  com- 
mercial education,  whether  in  courses  or  in  separate  schools, 
has  been  warmly  welcomed  by  parents,  and  pupils  have 
attended  in  large  numbers  ;  e.g.,  nearly  half  the  girls  in 
the  Girls'  High  School  of  Boston  are  in  the  Commercial 
Department  Course.  A  statistical  reference  from  the  cur- 
rent Report  of  the  United  States  Bureau  of  Education  will 
show  the  extent  of  the  work  of  both  types  of  institutions, 
as  well  as  the  numbers  in  the  Commercial  Departments  of 
universities  and  colleges.  These  need  no  special  explana- 
tion, since  they  resemble  those  we  are  familiar  with  in  our 
own  newer  universities  where,  as  in  Birmingham  and  Man- 
chester, the  Degree  of  B.Com.  has  for  some  years  been 
regularly  conferred.  "  Reports  to  this  Bureau  from  4,925 
different  institutions  show  that  for  the  scholastic  year 
1905-6  there  were  enrolled  253,318  students  in  business  or 
commercial  studies."  This  was  an  apparent  decrease  of 
9,480  from  the  preceding  year.  The  regular  business 
schools  had  an  enrolment  of  130,085,  the  public  high 
schools  had  95,000  in  business  studies,  the  private  high 
schools  and  academies  had  1 3,868,  the  normal  schools  2,497, 
and  the  universities  and  colleges  1 1,868. 


224      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

On  this  point  it  is  necessary  to  distinguish  between  two 
types  of  instruction,  corresponding  to  two  functions  in 
business,  one  being  performed  practically  by  men  only, 
and  the  other  much  more  largely,  though  not  exclusively, 
by  women  and  girls.  The  former  is  business  properly  so 
called,  the  actual  control  and  management  and  initiation 
of  enterprises,  financial,  manufacturing,  or  trading.  The 
other  is  clerk  work,  the  assistance  given  as  book-keeper, 
secretary,  correspondent,  etc.,  to  a  principal,  and  requiring 
the  arts  of  shorthand  and  typewriting.  For  this,  women 
have  proved  themselves  especially  fitted ;  indeed  they  are 
often,  when  they  have  had  a  proper  training,  preferred  to 
men,  and  not  only  because  their  labour  is  cheaper.  As  is 
commonly  known,  the  employment  of  women  in  this  way 
is  much  more  general  in  America  than  with  us ;  not  only 
is  there  at  least  one  woman  secretary  in  every  business 
man's  office,  but  every  headmaster  in  a  high  school,  and 
most  of  the  more  important  authorities  in  a  university  and 
college,  are  provided  by  their  institutions  with  the  same 
kind  of  help.  The  headmaster's  secretary  is  indeed  the 
lady  whom  one  first  meets  on  visiting  a  school,  and  the 
college  professor  who  has  not  at  least  a  share  in  a  secretary 
thinks  himself  very  hardly  treated.  It  is  in  the  Com- 
mercial Departments  of  public  high  schools,  and  in  various 
special  technical  institutions,  that  these  ladies  receive  the 
training  which  fits  them  to  discharge,  so  admirably  as  they 
do,  functions  which  are  often  much  more  responsible  and 
valuable  than  they  at  first  sight  appear.  The  well-edu- 
cated girl  at  nineteen  or  twenty  years  of  age,  who  has  had 
her  technical  training,  is  very  far  from  being  the  mere 
mechanical  clerk  which  the  English  business  college 
produces  after  six  months'  instruction  of  a  Seventh 
Standard  child  of  fourteen  or  fifteen. 

The  directing,   originating  work,  the   training  of  the 
principal,  should  be,  of  course,  different  from  that  of  the 


Commercial  Education  225 

clerk  or  secretary,  and  since  boys  in  America  all  hope  to 
be  principals,  it  would  appear  that  their  training  should  be 
given  in  a  separate  commercial  high  school,  should  be  of 
a  more  general  character,  with  greater  emphasis  on  science, 
commercial  law,  economics,  and  such  subjects,  while  the 
acquisition  of  the  arts  of  shorthand  and  typewriting  can 
be  omitted  altogether.  This  truth  has  been  recognised 
in  such  very  progressive  communities  as  Boston  and  New 
York,  where  there  are  separate  commercial  high  schools 
for  boys.  That  of  Boston  is  particularly  interesting  since 
it  carries  out  the  theory  most  carefully.1 

The  co-educational  commercial  school,  like  those  of  St. 
Louis  and  Washington,  provides,  as  we  shall  see,  a  curri- 
culum suited  mainly  for  the  future  clerk  or  secretary ;  in 
these  schools  there  is  about  one  boy  to  two  girls.  Properly 
speaking,  of  course,  the  principal  should  receive  his  busi- 
ness education  in  a  college  or  university,  in  such  depart- 
ments as  in  the  Wharton  School  in  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  or  the  specialised  courses  in  the  Universities 
of  Wisconsin,  Chicago,  California,  or  in  Columbia,  where  a 
four  years'  course,  recommended  by  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce of  the  State  of  New  York,  has  been  established. 
These  university  courses  do  not  concern  women,  but  quite 
recently  there  has  been  established  a  degree  course  for  their 
special  secretarial  work  in  the  new  Simmons  College  at 
Boston.  This  college  was  founded  definitely  to  train  women 
to  earn  a  living,  and  it  could  not,  therefore,  ignore  one  of 
the  most  important  avenues  for  the  educated  girl.  It  has 
established  a  Bachelor  of  Science  Degree,  given  after  a  four 

1 "  A  mere  substitution  of  a  few  business  studies  in  the  usual  English 
course  does  not  make  for  commercial  training,  and  such  action  is  not 
only  an  inadequate  provision  for  present  needs,  but  is  destructive  of 
future  possibilities.  Properly  planned,  a  course  of  instruction  may  bear 
the  stamp  of  its  purpose  in  every  part,  and  at  the  same  time  not  lose  a 
whit,  but  on  the  contrary,  by  unity  and  close  connection,  gain  decidedly 
in  general  educative  value  "  (Professor  James's  Monograph). 

15 


226       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


years'  course,  and  requiring  previous  education  in  a  good 
high  school  up  to  what  we  should  call  the  leaving  certifi- 
cate standard.  This  course  in  secretarial  studies  corre- 
sponds with  that  for  librarians,  which  has  already  been  in 
existence  for  women  in  America  for  some  time.  Liberal 
studies  are,  of  course,  required,  the  value  of  English,  history 
and  languages  being  emphasised,  as  the  subjoined  table  of 
requirements  will  show. 

SCHOOL   OF   SECRETARIAL    STUDIES. 

The  Four-  Year  Programme. 

Four  years  are  required  for  the  completion  of  the  regular 
programme ;  but  a  student  who  finds  it  necessary  to  withdraw 
at  the  end  of  the  school  or  third  year  may,  with  the  consent  of 
the  Director  of  the  School,  be  allowed  an  opportunity  to  com- 
plete the  work  in  Shorthand,  Typewriting,  Accounts,  Commerce, 
and  Commercial  Law.  In  such  cases  a  special  condensed 
programme  is  arranged,  to  be  followed  during  the  last  year  of 
the  student's  residence. 


First  Year. 
Cataloguing. 
Reference. 
Classification. 
Typewriting. 
English. 
German. 
French. 
History. 
Hygiene. 

Third  Year. 
Shorthand. 
Typewriting. 
English. 
History. 
Economics. 
Elective. 


FOUR-YEAR   PROGRAMME. 

Second  Year. 

Shorthand. 

Typewriting. 

English. 

German. 

French. 

Physics. 


Fourth  Year. 
Shorthand. 
Typewriting. 
Accounts. 
Business  Methods. 
English. 

Commercial  Law. 
Ethics. 

Social  Science. 
Elective. 


Commercial  Education  227 

Simmons  also  offers  a  one  year  course  to  graduates  of 
other  colleges,  when  the  time  is  given,  as  in  a  post-graduate 
course  for  teachers  in  England,  entirely  to  the  technical 
subjects.  Women  graduates  from  Smith,  Wellesley  and 
elsewhere,  after  special  technical  instruction,  obtain,  it  can 
be  imagined,  excellent  posts.1  Technical  teaching  at  Sim- 
mons College  is  particularly  valuable  for  study  by  visitors ; 
the  authorities  in  the  department  have  the  newest  equip- 
ment, and  are  familiar  with  all  the  text-books.  The  head 
of  the  department  is  a  man.  No  shorthand  is  taught  in  the 
first  year  of  the  four  years'  degree  course,  but  typewriting 
is  begun.  It  would  be  better,  some  say,  to  wait  till  the 
second  year,  and  go  on  for  three  years,  five  periods  a  week, 
the  first  year  (nineteen  years  of  age)  being  devoted  entirely 
to  liberal  education,  including  arithmetic,  since  the  subject 
in  America  is  not  taught  in  the  high  school.  The  study  of 
accounts  is  reserved  for  the  fourth  or  Senior  year,  five 
periods  a  week.  The  students  in  the  Secretarial  Depart- 
ment keep  a  bank  for  the  cash  of  all  the  students,  and 
assist  with  the  college  accounts,  and  with  the  accounts  of 
the  dormitory  (or  hostel  for  residence).  It  will  thus  be 
seen  that  the  training  is  of  a  most  practical  kind,  while  it 
preserves  the  New  England  tradition  of  academic  culture. 

There  is  a  third  type  of  institution  giving  commercial 
education  so  important  in  the  history  of  the  movement 
that  it  must  receive  special  attention — the  privately  en- 
dowed institution.  The  Drexel  Institute  of  Philadelphia 
is  the  most  important  of  these,  and  no  study  of  the  sub- 
ject would  be  complete  without  visiting  its  magnificent 

1  The  One-Year  Programme, — A  one-year  programme  of  secretarial  sub- 
jects has  been  arranged  for  graduates  of  other  colleges,  the  purpose  of 
which  is  to  provide  technical  instruction  for  students  who  have  already 
completed  the  equivalent  of  the  academic  subjects  prescribed  in  the  four- 
year  programme.  Programme  for  College  Graduates. — Shorthand,  Type- 
writing, Accounts,  Business  Methods,  English,  Commercial  Law,  Cata- 
loguing, or  Commerce,  Experience  in  Professional  Work. 

15* 


228        Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

building,  and  devoting  time  and  thought  to  understanding 
the  fine  work  it  does.     Professor  James  says  : — 

I  think  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  two  years'  course 
offered  in  the  Drexel  Institute  forms  in  its  way  a  model,  and 
furnishes  the  basis  for  the  elaboration  of  a  curriculum  which 
will  compare  favourably  with  the  best  of  the  European  com- 
mercial schools  of  the  same  grade. 

The  present  writer  found  its  text-books  and  method 
followed  elsewhere  very  largely;  it  has  been  a  pioneer  in 
the  movement  in  the  true  educational  sense.  It  has  not 
been  established  for  private  profit,  like  the  so-called  com- 
mercial college,  nor  has  it  been  open  to  the  political  in- 
fluences which  have  affected  the  public  high  schools.  It 
has  been  in  the  true  sense  independent,  free  to  experiment 
and  to  maintain  its  ideal  irrespective  of  the  popular  demand 
of  the  moment.  Its  aim  is  thus  described  in  the  Institute 
Year  Book : — 

The  Drexel  Institute  was  founded  in  1891  by  Anthony  J. 
Drexel,  for  the  promotion  of  education  in  art,  science  and 
industry,  he  being  largely  influenced  by  his  friend  Geo.  W. 
Childs.  The  chief  object  of  the  Institute  is  the  extension  and 
improvement  of  industrial  education  as  a  means  of  opening 
wider  and  better  avenues  of  employment  to  young  men  and 
young  women.  The  founder's  gifts  to  the  institution  as  a  whole 
amount  to  three  million  dollars.  Of  this  sum  one  million  was  ex- 
pended upon  the  original  building  with  its  equipments  and 
appliances,  and  two  millions  were  set  apart  for  the  permanent 
endowment.  Total  amount  of  the  endowment  and  of  the 
property  belonging  to  the  Institute  is  four  million  dollars.  The 
endowment  fund  of  two  million  dollars  is  applied  in  maintaining 
the  instruction.  This  enables  the  institution  to  offer  the  instruc- 
tion at  extremely  moderate  and  in  some  of  the  evening  classes 
at  almost  nominal  rates.  A  limited  number  of  free  scholarships 
are  granted  to  deserving  students.  The  Institute  is  open  to 
both  sexes  on  equal  terms. 


Commercial  Education  229 

The  building  is  very  centrally  situated  on  Chestnut 
Street ;  it  is  a  stately  pile,  with  a  most  beautiful  central 
court  with  three  tiers  of  open  arches,  and  a  magnificent 
staircase  on  which  stands  a  monument  of  the  founder.  The 
lecture-rooms  are  arranged  on  corridors  on  to  which  the 
arches  open,  the  museum  and  library  being  on  the  ground 
floor.  The  words  Art,  Science  and  Industry  occurring  in 
the  title  show  the  importance  of  art  in  the  mind  of  the 
founder.  The  Principal,  Dr.  James  MacAlister,  is  a  well- 
known  authority  on  education,  and  was  for  some  years 
Superintendent  of  Public  Schools  in  Philadelphia.  In  Eng- 
land such  an  institution  devoted  to  technical  education 
would  probably  have  grants  from  the  Government  and 
from  the  Local  Authority.  The  State  of  Pennsylvania 
does  not  give  such  grants,  and  we  were  informed  that  if 
the  city  of  Philadelphia  gave  a  grant  to  the  Drexel  In- 
stitute it  would  expect  to  be  consulted  in  the  appointments 
of  the  staff.  It  is  noteworthy  that  the  leading  technical 
institutions  in  America  are  generally  independent  bodies 
founded  and  endowed  by  very  wealthy  persons.  Local 
education  authorities  in  America  so  far  have  not  taken 
up  technical  education,  whereas,  as  we  know,  in  England 
this  was  the  first  educational  work  our  City  and  County 
Councils  had  to  do.  In  the  Drexel  Institute  the  Depart- 
ment of  Commerce  and  Finance  is  organised  in  five 
sections  : — 

I.  School  of  Commerce  and  Accounts. 
II.  Commercial  Course  for  Teachers. 

III.  Special  Business  Courses. 

IV.  Office  Courses. 
V.  Evening  Courses. 

Applicants  for  admission  to  the  School  of  Commerce  and 
Accounts  must  have  completed  the  work  of  the  Grammar 
Schools  of  Philadelphia,  or  of  other  schools  of  equal  rank. 


230       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


Upon  presentation  of  certificate  indicating  this  degree  of 
preparation  applicants  will  be  admitted  without  examina- 
tion. 

For  admission  to  the  Special  Business  Course  applicants 
should  have  graduated  from  a  high  school,  or  spent  at  least 
two  years  in  a  high  school  or  other  school  of  equal  rank. 
Each  applicant's  qualifications  will  be  specially  considered 
by  the  director  of  the  department.  If  satisfactory  school 
or  other  credentials  cannot  be  submitted  by  the  applicant, 
he  will  be  examined  in  the  subjects  specified  for  the  Office 
Courses  in  the  paragraph  below. 

For  admission  to  any  one  of  the  Office  Courses  applicants 
must  be  at  least  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  must  pass  an 
examination  in  English  grammar  and  composition,  geo- 
graphy, arithmetic  and  United  States  history. 

The  diploma  of  high  schools  of  approved  standing  is 
accepted  for  all  courses  in  place  of  an  examination.  The 
first,  though  open  to  young  women,  is  not  so  important  for 
them ;  it  is  rather  a  business  course  proper,  and  therefore 
suited  for  men  who  are  "trained  to  do  business".  It  lasts 
for  two  years. 

JUNIOR   YEAR. 


Subject. 

No.  of 
hours  per 
week. 

English  Language 
Commercial  and  Indu 
Business  Customs 
Book-keeping 
Penmanship 
Typewriting 
Correspondence  . 
Commercial  Geograpr 
Public  Speaking 
Physical  Training 
Total 

jtrial 

y 

Arith 

meti 

2 

4 

I 

5 

2 

4 
I 

2 

I 
2 

24 

Commercial  Education 


231 


SENIOR   YEAR. 


Subject 

No.  of  hours 
per  week. 

ISt 

Term. 

2nd 
Term. 

English  Language  . 

2 

3 

I 

3 

2 
2 

2 
2 

5 

i 
2 

2 

3 

i 

3 

2 

2 

2 

I* 

5 

I 

2 

Commercial  Arithmetic   .                 .                          . 
Commercial  Geography  .                 .                          . 

Mechanism  of  Commerce                 .                          . 
Civics      ....                 .                                   . 

Commercial  Law     .                          .                          . 

Stenography     
Public  Speaking       
Physical  Training    .        .        .        .        .        .        .        . 
Total     

25 

24 

The  Teachers'  Course,  which  lasts  one  year,  requires  grad- 
uation from  a  college  or  State  normal  school. 

The  third  section  is  for  three  occupations,  real  estate 
and  conveyancing,  advertising  and  insurance,  and  are  offered 
to  young  men.  It  is  in  the  Office  Courses  that  women 
find  most  advantage,  especially  in  the  Secretarial  Course. 
Thirty-five  young  women,  eighteen  to  twenty-two  years  of 
age,  were  following  this  course  of  study,  some  being  college 
graduates,  who  have  been  found,  says  the  head  of  the  de- 
partment, to  advance  much  faster  than  the  other  students. 
It  will  be  noticed  that  the  girls  must  have  had  a  good 
general  education  up  to  eighteen  years  of  age. 

This  course  has  been  organised  to  respond  to  applications  that 
are  made  to  the  Institute  for  clerks  fitted  to  do  work  of  a  more 
general  character  and  of  a  higher  grade  than  that  required  in  a 
purely  business  office.  Applicants  for  admission  must  show  by 


1  Part  of  the  term. 


232       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

diploma  or  by  examination  that  they  possess  an  education  of 
high-school  grade. 

The  course  occupies  one  year,  divided  into  two  terms,  and 
includes  the  following  subjects  : — 


Subject. 

No.  of 
hours  per 
week. 

Stenography 
Typewriting 
English  Language 
Accounts,  Business  F 
Correspondence  . 
Penmanship 
Business  Printing 
Physical  Training 
Total  . 

rms 

and  C 

'usto 

ms 

9 

5 

2 

I 
I 
I 
I1 
2 

22 

The  Book-keeping  and  Stenography  Courses  are  of  a  more 
ordinary  character ;  applicants  for  these  must  be  at  least 
sixteen  years  of  age,  and  have  passed  an  examination  in 
English,  geography,  arithmetic  and  United  States  history. 
The  fees  at  the  Drexel  Institute  are  $50  (£12)  per  annum  ; 
the  Teachers'  Course  costs  £14  per  annum. 

However  important  and  excellent  technical  institutes 
may  be,  the  public  commercial  high  school  is  undoubtedly, 
nevertheless,  the  most  important  for  a  student,  and  from 
it  a  very  great  deal  may  be  learnt.  Its  four  years'  course, 
from  fourteen  to  eighteen  years  of  age,  has  been  carefully 
thought  out,  and  is  intended  to  give  a  liberal  education. 
English  is  the  centre  of  the  curriculum,  being  taught,  in 
general,  five  periods  a  week  throughout  the  four  years. 
Good  literature  is  read,  much  attention  is  given  to  com- 
position, and  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  is  found  necessary  to- 
day to  devote  to  spelling  some  time  at  least  during  the 


1  Part  of  second  term. 


Commercial  Education  233 

first  year.  Mathematics  is  also  compulsory,  algebra  dur- 
ing the  first  year,  and  geometry  during  the  second.  Indeed 
the  first  year's  course  is  almost  entirely  general,  penman- 
ship and  commercial  arithmetic  being  for  the  most  part 
the  only  technical  subjects  taken.  In  the  second  year, 
shorthand,  or  as  it  is  termed  in  America  stenography,  is 
begun.1  Some  schools,  notably  the  Brookline  High 
School,  Mass.,  begin  typing  in  the  second  year ;  many, 
however,  reserve  this  subject  for  the  third  year,  when  some 
progress  has  been  made  in  shorthand,  and  when  the  two 
subjects  can  go  on  together.  English  opinion  would  prob- 
ably agree  with  this  view.  Since  mathematics  disappear 
from  the  third  year  there  is  more  time  then  for  technical 
subjects.  Many  pupils  leave  at  the  end  of  the  third  year, 
as  they  must  then  begin  to  earn  a  living.  In  the  fourth 
year  shorthand  and  typing  are  continued  to  a  higher  de- 
gree of  efficiency,  and  short  Courses  of  Commercial  Law 
and  Economics  are  given. 

With  us,  languages  would  be  considered  for  educated 
girls  almost  as  important  as  the  technical  side,  but  it  is 
not  so  in  America,  where  in  general,  indeed,  modern 
languages  are  not  felt  to  be  so  necessary,  or  valued  as 
highly,  as  in  the  Old  World.  There  is  a  marked  differ- 

1 "  Phonography,  or  shorthand,  is,  to  my  mind,  a  study  entitled  to  pro- 
minent recognition,  not  only  because  of  its  utility,  but  also  because  of 
the  mental  discipline  which  it  gives  in  cultivating  and  strengthening  the 
powers  of  attention,  observation  and  discrimination.  I  suggest  its  in- 
troduction into  the  course  of  study  in  the  second  year,  and  at  the  end  of 
that  year  I  believe  the  pupil  should  have  acquired  a  complete  mastery  of 
the  principles  and  the  word-signs  of  the  system,  and  be  ready  to  apply 
them  without  hesitation.  He  should  be  able  to  take  from  dictation  easy 
new  matter  quite  readily.  The  distinction  between  a  mere  writer  of 
shorthand  and  a  competent  stenographer  should  be  kept  from  the  pupil, 
and  those  who  intend  to  begin  their  business  career  as  stenographers 
should  be  constantly  reminded  of  the  need  for  acquiring  general  culture 
as  well  as  the  ability  to  perform  the  mechanical  work  of  the  amanuensis  " 
(William  E.  Doggett,  National  Education  Association  Address,  1900). 


234      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

ence  here  between  the  Handelsclassen  in  the  Zurich  Girls' 
High  School  and  the  Commercial  Department  in  the 
McKinley  High  School  at  St.  Louis,  or  even  the  Business 
High  School  in  Washington.  In  Boston,  however,  perhaps 
because  it  is  in  more  senses  than  one  nearer  to  Europe, 
the  value  of  modern  languages  is  emphasised,  and  recently 
French  or  German  has  been  made  compulsory  throughout 
the  course,  with  a  possibility  of  studying  a  second  language 
in  the  later  years.  We  do  not,  however,  find  anything 
like  the  experience  in  the  Secretarial  Department  of  the 
Manchester  High  School,  where  the  better  girls  are  able 
to  take  French,  German  and  Spanish.  On  the  other 
hand,  science  is  considered  valuable  and  important  in  the 
Commercial  Department,  especially  at  St.  Louis,  though 
here  we  suspect  the  needs  of  boys  are  more  considered 
than  those  of  girls.  The  schools  vary  in  the  amount  of 
compulsory  science,  and  in  the  particular  sciences  studied, 
as  they  do  in  the  place  given  to  history,  drawing,  and 
music,  though  some  history  is  almost  always  required. 
Commercial  geography  also  appears,  and  something  like 
the  Waarenkunde  (knowledge  of  goods)  of  the  Zurich 
School.  The  fact  that  there  are  elective  courses  allows 
for  some  differentiation  between  boys  and  girls  ;  the  man, 
who  will  be  the  organising  head  of  a  business,  taking 
more  science,  law,  economics,  etc.,  and  the  woman,  who 
will  be  a  dependent  and  an  assistant,  giving  more  time  to 
the  technical  arts. 

The  equipment  is  everywhere  very  fine,  as  might  well  be 
expected  in  the  land  which  is  the  home  of  the  typewriter, 
where  systems  of  card  catalogues,  filing,  and  indexing  have 
been  elaborated  to  the  highest  degree.  The  rooms  are 
fitted  with  separate  desks  and  tables,  more  than  twice  the 
size  of  an  ordinary  school  desk,  each  with  several  drawers ; 
in  the  typewriting-room  these  desks  have  a  disappearing 
typewriter  which  can  be  lowered  at  will  into  the  well  of  the 


Commercial  Education  235 

desk ;  about  thirty-six  to  forty  such  desks  and  typewriters 
will  be  found  in  one  room.  Very  large  schools  have  two 
rooms,  that  is  eighty  machines,  but  most  manage  by  using 
the  thirty-six  or  forty  machines  for  different  sets  of  pupils, 
each  pupil  having  one  of  the  drawers  at  a  particular  desk 
for  her  own  papers.  The  machines  are  of  the  five  or  six 
standard  well-known  makes ;  it  is  rare  for  an  institution 
to  have  only  two  varieties.  Filing  cabinets  of  various 
kinds  abound,  and  in  the  most  distinguished  institutions 
the  pupils '  home-work  is  returned  to  them  through  these. 
One  end  of  the  room  is  fitted  up  like  an  American  bank, 
with  the  peculiar  enclosure — a  metal  grating  in  real  banks 
— above  the  counter,  leaving  a  narrow  space  for  the  hand 
of  cashier  or  customer,  which  seems  very  odd  to  English 
people  accustomed  to  our  broad  open  counter.  Within 
this  fitment  the  pupils,  in  turn,  play  at  banking,  as  we 
should  say,  proper  books  being  kept,  and  the  ordinary 
forms  being  employed.  At  Simmons  College  are  shown 
various  duplicating  machines,  some  of  a  very  elaborate 
and  costly  kind,  and  also  calculating  machines.  It  ap- 
pears that  it  is  extremely  difficult  now  to  get  clerks  who 
can  add  accurately,  and  so  in  the  Department  Stores  and 
large  drapery  establishments,  etc.,  the  addition  of  successive 
sums  of  money  is  done  by  a  machine  which  cannot  err. 
Several  types  of  these  are  part  of  the  equipment  at  Sim- 
mons College;  there  is  also  a  wonderful  machine  on 
which  a  Trial  Balance  can  be  made.  The  head  of  the 
department  there  does  not  consider  that  the  phonograph 
is  of  much  importance  as  an  aid  to  correspondence;  he 
uses  it,  however,  to  give  extra  practice  to  backward 
students  in  shorthand.  We  have  much  to  learn  in 
England  from  the  equipment  of  the  American  commercial 
school;  in  very  good  evening  schools  here  there  is  not 
even  a  collection  of  model  ledgers  and  specimen  documents 
such  as  charter  parties ;  typewriters  have,  of  course,  to  be 


236       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

bought  everywhere,  but  other  machinery  is  rarely  seen  in 
England. 

METHOD. 

It  may  be  well  to  add  a  few  notes  as  to  methods  of  teach- 
ing technical  subjects  in  America.  Since  this  has  been 
going  on  for  over  fifty  years  considerable  progress  has 
been  made,  and  excellent  methods  of  organising  and 
arranging  the  subjects,  and  of  overcoming  the  difficulties 
thoroughly  in  the  shortest  possible  time  have  been  dis- 
covered. Speaking  generally,  they  are  in  method  dis- 
tinctly ahead  of  us;  this  is  especially  the  case  with 
typing,  as  might  be  expected,  since  the  machine  itself 
originated  in  America.  Their  method  is  that  of  Touch 
Typing ;  the  operator  must  not  look  at  the  keys.  This 
method  takes  much  longer  at  the  beginning,  like  sound 
piano  technique,  but  it  is  right  in  the  end.  English 
opinion  is  moving  in  this  direction,  more  especially  for 
the  teaching  of  older  pupils  ;  the  girl  of  fourteen  has  not 
enough  self-control  and  sense  to  make  herself  keep  to  the 
tf  Touch  System,"  but  adults,  or  even  girls  of  seventeen  to 
nineteen,  are  ready  to  follow  the  right  way.  At  least 
American  girls  are ;  it  is  found  in  practice  that  some 
English  girls  feel  it  hard  to  learn  the  Touch  method. 
It  is  certainly  very  dull  at  the  beginning,  the  text-books 
containing  elaborate  five-finger  exercises  of  a  very  formal 
and  uninteresting  character.  Undoubtedly,  however,  in 
the  end  the  American  girls  are  better  typists ;  the  English 
girl  too  often  would  rather  write  than  type. 

The  book-keeping,  too,  is  very  well  taught.  Their  text- 
books and  materials,  business  forms,  etc.,  are  admirable  ; 
there  is  nothing  like  them  to  be  had  in  England.  The 
English  text-books  are  too  often  not  up  to  date  or  are  un- 
practical ;  these  faults  are  avoided  in  America.  In  short- 


Commercial  Education  237 

hand  their  superiority  is  not  quite  so  marked,  and  they 
appear  to  find  the  same  difficulties  that  teachers  find  here ; 
the  Benn-Pitman  system  is  used,  and  the  text-books  seem 
to  be  about  as  good  as  ours.  The  American  want  of 
differentiation  among  pupils  appears  here  as  in  Latin  or 
mathematics;  there  is  no  attempt  to  get  the  quicker, 
better  pupil  into  another  division  and  drive  her  along 
faster;  during  the  year  all  are  kept  at  the  same  pace. 
The  standard  attained  at  the  end  of  a  given  number  of 
lessons  seems  to  be  about  the  same  as  with  us,  though,  of 
course,  pupils  make  better  progress  when  they  have  a 
lesson  every  day.  This  merit  of  the  American  system  is, 
however,  counterbalanced  by  the  uniformity  and  lack  of 
opportunity  of  the  better  pupils  to  advance  more  quickly. 
Pupils,  it  is  found,  differ  markedly  in  their  capacity  for 
shorthand,  and  some  can  get  on  at  twice  or  even  three 
times  the  rate  of  others.  In  the  Boston  High  School  we 
saw  an  interesting  method  of  the  repetition  of  the  same 
piece  at  increasing  rates  of  speed ;  this  was  done,  the 
teacher  said,  to  secure  the  instantaneous  correlation  of  ear 
and  hand  on  which  speed  shorthand  depends.  The  work 
is  really  of  the  character  of  gymnastics.  The  controversy 
with  respect  to  the  repetition  of  dictated  matter  so  familiar 
here  is  not  unknown  in  America.  The  exercises  in  their 
text-books  are  very  carefully  elaborated,  the  arrangement 
of  the  subject  is  highly  organised,  the  maximum  amount 
of  work  done  in  the  minimum  amount  of  time,  but  a 
practical  teacher  wonders  whether  the  work  done  is  not 
too  academic  in  character;  it  seems  lacking  in  reality. 
It  may  be,  however,  that  this  objection,  which  would  obtain 
with  English  pupils,  is  not  so  serious  with  the  more  docile 
American  girls. 

In  correspondence  the  work  in  the  text-books  appears 
rather  easy ;  it  may  be  that  the  weakness  in  English  com- 
position which  is  so  conspicuous  in  American  high  schools 


238       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

affects  also  the  standard  of  the  work  in  commercial  corre- 
spondence. No  precis  writing  is  found  in  the  ordinary- 
manuals  ;  for  this  part  of  the  work  they  are  not  by  any 
means  superior  to  those  we  have  in  England.  In  hand- 
writing it  is  the  style  taught  here  fifty  or  sixty  years  ago 
that  they  use ;  probably  in  this  subject  American  teachers 
could  learn  from  us  in  England,  where  actual  penmanship 
is  relatively  more  necessary,  and  where,  as  is  well  known, 
many  people  still  object  to  the  use  of  the  typewriter  for 
business  and  official  documents.  In  America  it  does  not 
much  matter  if  clerks  and  secretaries  do  not  write  what 
we  should  call  a  good  hand ;  they  have  reduced  the  neces- 
sity to  a  minimum ;  in  this  as  in  so  many  other  places  in 
the  national  life  the  proud  American  saying  is  only  too 
true :  "  Men  are  cheaper  in  England ;  machinery  is 
cheaper  here  ". 

SOME  PARTICULAR  SCHOOLS. 

It  was  the  writer's  good  fortune  to  visit  and  study  more 
particularly  five  excellent  commercial  high  schools.  The 
first  was  a  department  of  the  McKinley  High  School,  at 
St.  Louis,  containing  35  per  cent,  of  the  whole  school,  that 
is,  over  500  pupils,  in  the  proportion  of  five  girls  to  four 
boys.  Here  the  value  of  chemistry  is  emphasised,  since 
St.  Louis  is  a  manufacturing  town,  and  the  pupils  will  go 
into  offices  where  scientific  terms  will  be  used.  The  head 
of  the  department  does  not  believe  much  in  language  work. 
The  equipment  is  exceedingly  good,  though  they  manage 
with  only  twenty-four  typewriters.  Shorthand  is  taken,  as 
will  be  seen,  in  the  third  and  fourth  years,  and  the  pupils 
easily  acquire  a  speed  of  60  words  a  minute  after  one 
year's  study,  and  100  to  125  words  a  minute  at  the  end  of 
the  course.  The  subjoined  tables  show  the  arrangement 
of  studies  and  the  number  of  periods  a  week  given  to 


Commercial  Education 


239 


each ;  in  some  cases  these  may  vary  with  the  half-year, 
two  periods  the  first  half,  and  three  the  second,  and  vice 
versti. 


COMMERCIAL   COURSE. 


First  Year. 


Second  Year. 


English. 

One  of  the  following  studies  : 

Latin,  German,  French,  Spanish, 

Drawing. 

Botany  (first  half-year). 
Physiology  (second  half-year). 

Algebra. 

Arithmetic  and  Penmanship. 


English. 

One  of  the  following  studies : 
Latin,  German,  French,  Spanish, 
Drawing. 

Physics. 

Geometry. 

Book-keeping. 


Third  Year. 


Fourth  Year. 


English. 

One  of  the  following  languages : 

Latin,  German,  French,  Spanish. 


Book-keeping  (first  half-year). 
Commercial   Law    (second    half- 
year). 
History. 


Stenography  and  Typewriting. 


English  and  Shakespeare. 

One  of  the  following  languages : 

Latin,  German,  French,  Spanish. 

Chemistry  or 

Psychology  (first  half-year)  and 

Ethics  (second  half-year). 

Civics  (first  half-year). 
Economics  (second  half-year). 
History  (first  half-year). 
Commercial    Geography    (second 

half-year). 
Stenography  and  Typewriting. 


240       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


No.  of  Periods  per  week. 

25 

25 

30 

30 

Year. 

I. 

II. 

III. 

IV. 

English 

5 

5 

5 

3 

Shakespeare 

2 

History         . 

— 

— 

5 

5- 

Algebra         .         . 

5 

— 

Geometry 

5 

— 

— 

Algebra  and  Geometry 
Trigonometry 



z 

~ 

Biology         .         . 

5 

— 

— 

— 

Physics 

5 

— 

— 

Chemistry     . 

— 

— 

5* 

Physiography 

— 

—     • 

— 

Psychology  .         . 

— 

— 

— 

5* 

Ethics  . 

— 

— 

— 

5' 

Greek  . 

— 

— 

— 

Latin    . 

5° 

5° 

5° 

5° 

German 

5° 

5° 

5° 

5° 

French  . 

5° 

5° 

5° 

5° 

Spanish 

5° 

5° 

5° 

5° 

Drawing 

5° 

5° 

Manual  Training  . 

— 

— 

Penmanship  . 

2-3 

— 

— 

— 

Commercial  Arithmetic 

3-2 

— 

— 

— 

Book-keeping 

5 

5- 

— 

Commercial  Law 

— 

— 

-5 

— 

Civics   . 

— 

— 

5- 

Economics    . 

— 

— 

— 

-5 

Commercial  Geography 

— 

— 

— 

-5 

Stenography 

— 

— 

5 

3-2 

Typewriting  . 

~ 

5 

2-3 

Studies  marked  with  a  circle  (°)  or  star  (*)  arc  alternative. 
Physical  Exercise  are  required  of  all  pupils  each  year. 


Music  and 


The  pupils  here  are  taught  actual  office  work,  and  go 
straight  out  of  school  into  posts.  We  were  informed  that 
the  demand  for  them  exceeds  the  supply. 

The  special  interest  of  the  Washington  Business  High 
School  is,  first,  that  it  is  a  separate  school,  and,  second,  that 
a  large  number  of  its  pupils,  both  boys  and  girls,  are  pre- 
pared to  enter  Government  offices,  or  to  become  private 
secretaries  to  members  of  Congress  and  other  official 


Commercial  Education  241 

persons.  Some  of  the  boys  are  preparing  to  enter  the 
Civil  Service  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  America's  new 
possession,  which  she  finds  so  troublesome  to  govern. 
There  are  800  pupils,  in  the  proportion  of  two  girls  to 
one  boy.  Science  is  especially  important  for  posts  in  such 
departments  as  agriculture;  languages  are  also  needed. 
Originally,  the  Washington  system  was  that  of  a  two  years' 
course  in  an  ordinary  high  school.  This,  of  course,  produced 
a  mere  clerk ;  it  is  still  retained  in  the  Business  High 
School,  since  this  type  of  employment  is  still  necessary. 
The  course  is  as  follows : — 

TWO-YEAR   COURSE. 

First  Year. 

Elementary  Book-keeping  and  Business  Practice 5 

Business  Arithmetic 4 

English 4 

Shorthand 4 

Physical  Geography 3 

Penmanship i 

Drawing,  Freehand  or  Commercial i 

Typewriting I 

23 

Second  Year. 

Advanced  Book-keeping  or  Shorthand 6 

Applied  and  Interpretative  Arithmetic 3 

English 4 

Commercial  Law 3 

Commercial  Geography 3 

Typewriting 4 

23 

Now,  however,  a  four  years'  course  has  been  established  ; 
the  total  entry  of  new  pupils  last  September  was  500 ;  I  oo 
of  these  are  taking  a  four  years'  course  as  against  400  tak- 
ing a  short  course. 

The  arrangement  of  subjects  is  as  follows : — 

16 


242       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 


FOUR-YEAR  COURSE. 
First  Year. 

Elementary  Book-keeping  and  Business  Practice 5 

Business  Arithmetic 4 

English 4 

French,  German  or  Spanish  or 5 

Physical  Geography 3 

Penmanship I 

Drawing,  Freehand  or  Commercial i 

23 
Second  Year. 

Advanced  Book-keeping 6 

Biology  and  Commercial  Products 5 

Applied  and  Interpretative  Arithmetic 3 

English  or  French,  German  or  Spanish 4 

Commercial  Geography 3 

Penmanship i 

22 

Third  Year. 

Algebra  and  Inventional  Geometry 4 

Accounting,  Auditing  and  Finance  or  Shorthand  (Beginners')     .        .  4 

English 3 

French,  German  or  Spanish 4 

Elementary  and  Industrial  Physics 4 

Commercial  and  Industrial  History 3 

22 

Shorthand  (Elective,  Continuation  class  for  Shorthand  pupils  trans- 
ferring from  two-year  course) 2 

Fourth  Year. 

Business  Organisation  and  Management 4 

English 3 

French,  German  or  Spanish 3 

Government  and  Industrial  Problems 2 

Commercial  Law  ...........3 

Typewriting 4 

Advanced  Shorthand  and  Office  Training  or  Geometry  or  Elementary 

and  Industrial  Chemistry 5 

24 


Commercial  Education  243 

Pupils  may  transfer  from  the  two-year  course  to  the  four-year  course 
at  the  end  of  the  first  year,  without  condition. 

Pupils  transferring  to  the  four- year  course,  on  completion  of  the  second 
year  of  the  short  course,  must  take  extra  work  in  language  or  Science  in 
place  of  Beginners'  shorthand,  law  (fourth  year),  and  possibly  some  type- 
writing. 

While  the  total  of  recitations  per  week  is  heavy,  it  should  be  re- 
membered that  a  portion  of  the  work  requires  no  home  preparation. 

"  In  the  first  and  second  years  an  additional  hour  per 
week  will  be  given  to  oral  reading  and  spelling.  A  foreign 
language  begun  first  or  second  year  must  be  continued  for 
at  least  three  years." 

The  pupils  in  this  school  are  not  young ;  their  average 
age  on  entry  is  sixteen  and  a  half ;  many  transfer  from  the 
other  high  schools  in  Washington.  The  equipment  is 
excellent ;  the  school  has  eighty  typewriters.  The  prin- 
cipal made  two  significant  remarks :  "  Pupils  have  narrow 
ideals,  these  are  to  be  changed  ".  "  I  would  not  turn  them 
out  to-day  without  science."  Interesting  work  was  being 
done  in  commercial  drawing  and  the  preparation  of  notices 
and  advertisements ;  a  third-year  class  was  studying  finance, 
and  a  fourth  year  political  economy  and  business  organisa- 
tion. As  to  teachers,  the  view  here  is :  "  We  prefer  col- 
lege women  who  have  added  shorthand  and  typewriting  to 
their  liberal  education  ".  The  principal  himself  is  a  college 
graduate  who  has  acquired  the  technical  arts  by  vacation 
study. 

The  Philadelphia  Commercial  High  School  for  Girls 
has  the  unique  interest  of  being  a  wholly  feminine  institu- 
tion ;  all  the  forty-six  teachers  are  women,  and,  wonder- 
ful to  relate,  there  is  a  woman  principal  [of  whose  kindness 
the  writer  would  wish  to  make  special  acknowledgment]. 
Here  there  are  over  900  girls  in  attendance ;  we  were  in- 
formed that  the  years  are  divided  as  follows  :  3  50  in  the 
first  year,  260  in  the  second  year,  180  in  the  third  year, 
and  140  in  the  fourth  year.  Here,  also,  science  is  held  to 

16* 


244      Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

be  of  great  importance ;  the  equipment  presents  no  un- 
usual features,  and  the  building  is  old  and  unsuitable,  a 
very  rare  occurrence  in  the  larger  and  better  American 
schools. 

In  the  Boston  Girls'  High  School,  as  we  have  said, 
nearly  half  the  pupils  are  in  the  Commercial  Department ; 
the  course  is  for  four  years,  but  many  leave  at  the  end  of 
the  third  year.  The  chief  characteristics  of  the  curriculum 
are:  the  insistence  of  a  language  throughout  and  the 
beginning  of  book-keeping  as  well  as  penmanship  in  the 
first  year ;  history  is  optional,  it  alternates  throughout  with 
drawing  and  science.  Shorthand  and  typing  are  begun  in 
the  second  year,  commercial  geography  and  commercial 
law  occupy  three  periods  a  week  in  the  fourth  year.  Some 
interesting  statements  were  made  by  the  headmaster 
and  the  head  of  the  department ;  they  emphasised  the 
popularity  of  French,  the  need  of  building  up  English,  and 
of  working  at  spelling  and  arithmetic,  and  uttered  a  warn- 
ing against  using  too  much  printed  material  in  book-keep- 
ing, which  subject  it  appears  is  not  popular  with  girls.  The 
use  of  the  phonograph  is  not  approved,  the  danger  of 
memory  work  and  routine  in  shorthand  was  noted,  the 
value  of  what  one  might  call  translation  and  retranslation 
between  shorthand  and  longhand  was  also  emphasised. 
The  building  is  not  modern,  and  the  equipment  poor  com- 
pared with  St.  Louis,  but  one  perhaps  may  be  allowed  to 
say  that  the  excellencies  of  method,  and  the  earnestness  of 
tone  showed  how  much  more  important  for  efficiency  is 
the  teacher  than  the  building.  "  Men,  not  walls,  make  a 
city." 

Boston  Commercial  High  School  is  a  new  institution  of 
entirely  different  purpose ;  its  object  is  to  prepare  boys  for 
business  in  general.  A  number  of  leading  Boston  business 
men  have  interested  themselves  in  its  foundation  and 
organisation,  and  the  authorities  of  the  school  are  in  close 


Commercial  Education  245 

touch  with  the  Permanent  Committee  of  these  leaders  of 
commerce  in  Boston.  The  head  was  sent  to  Europe  to 
study  more  especially  the  German  system  of  commercial 
education ;  he  said  he  saw  very  little  in  England  that  was 
helpful.  The  German  language  is  compulsory,  since  the 
Germans  are  the  most  serious  rivals,  in  his  opinion,  that 
America  has  to  face.  The  school  aims  at  giving  a  liberal 
education  in  touch  with  local  conditions ;  it  contains  at 
present  340  boys,  but  it  is  only  just  at  the  beginning  of 
its  work.  History  has  an  important  part  in  the  curriculum, 
as  we  have  explained  in  Chapter  V.  ;  the  traditions  of 
the  place,  young  as  it  is,  have  a  university  atmosphere, 
and  some  of  the  boys  go  on  straight  to  college.  Out  of 
the  twenty  graduates  this  year,  one-third  will  do  this.  The 
influence  of  Harvard,  where  there  is  a  graduate  school  of 
commerce,  seems  to  count  for  much.  This  school,  per- 
haps because  it  was  for  boys  only,  and  because  many  of  the 
teachers  were  college  men,  reminded  one  of  a  good  English 
boys'  school ;  there  was  a  strength  of  discipline  in  handling 
some  awkward  material,  an  influence  of  form  masters  on 
their  boys,  a  strenuous  air,  a  certain  roughness  and  vitality 
which  do  not  appear  in  the  ordinary  American  high  school. 
The  place  and  the  experiment,  one  would  say,  are  well 
worth  studying  by  English  masters. 

I  do  not  believe  that  it  is  the  function  of  the  public 
secondary  school  to  teach  the  philosophy  of  business  manage- 
ment, nor  do  I  believe  it  is  within  its  power  to  do  so.  The 
course  of  study  of  a  public  commercial  high  school  must  be  ex- 
ceedingly strong  in  those  subjects  which  the  99  per  cent,  of 
those  who  attend  will  require  (the  essentials),  and,  if  possible, 
strong  in  those  branches  which  will  be  wanted  by  the  i  per  cent, 
who  are  expected  to  become  bank  presidents,  railroad  managers, 
consuls,  promoters  of  vast  enterprises  and  the  like. 

The  studies  of  the  course  may  be  grouped  as  follows  : 
English  ;  mathematics  ;  science  ;  languages ;  history  and  civics ; 


246       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

commercial  subjects  taught  separately  as  such,  including  writ- 
ing, book-keeping,  arithmetic,  commercial  law,  stenography 
and  typewriting. 

The  study  to  which  I  assign  the  first  place  in  the  commercial 
high  school  course  is  English,  by  which  I  mean  the  "  art  of  ex- 
pression in  conversation  and  writing,  and  on  one's  feet  in  public  " 
(William  E.  Doggett,  National  Education  Association  Address, 
1900,  quoted  in  Special  Reports,  vol.  ii.,  part  2,  Board  of 
Education  [Cd.  1156]). 

CONCLUSION. 

While  there  is  much  to  learn  as  to  methods  of  teaching, 
organisation  of  courses,  and  equipment  in  American  com- 
mercial education,  the  most  valuable  lesson  for  English 
people  certainly  is  that  this  teaching  is  best  given  to  those 
who  have  a  good  general  education.  In  England  too 
many  people  think  that  mere  technical  skill  in  shorthand 
and  typing  is  enough ;  they  do  not  realise  that  if  this  is 
preceded  by  a  liberal  education  the  product  is  altogether 
different,  and  very  much  more  valuable.  The  American 
commercial  schools  turn  out  products  suited  to  the  differ- 
ent needs  of  different  kinds  of  people,  including  the  re- 
sponsible principal  who  can  multiply  his  own  power,  and 
save  his  own  time,  by  the  employment  of  an  educated  sec- 
retary. It  is  absurd — were  it  not  so  pathetic — to  find  men 
in  England,  who  are  earning  over  ^"1,500  a  year,  writing 
their  letters  with  their  own  hands.  No  American  is  guilty 
of  such  a  waste  of  his  own  valuable  time  and  energy. 
Naturally,  the  cheap,  half-educated  young  clerk,  boy  or 
girl,  cannot  help  such  a  principal.  Our  mistake  in 
England  all  through  is  that  young  people  are  expected  to 
go  out  into  the  world  too  early.  We  cannot  believe  that 
time  is  needed  for  the  ripening  of  intelligence,  as  for  the 
ripening  of  fruit  and  the  maturing  of  whisky.  Nature 
will  not  be  hurried ;  really  good  intellectual  work  can 


Commercial  Education  247 

only  be  done  by  maturer  minds,  and  it  is  to  those  only 
that  more  advanced  training  can  profitably  be  given. 

It  is  already  being  recognised  on  the  clerical  and  literary  side 
of  the  various  forms  of  business  and  professional  activity,  that 
in  the  routine  of  the  office,  or  the  laboratory  or  the  library, 
whether  it  is  the  case  of  a  factory,  an  administration,  a  bank,  a 
lawyer,  a  physician,  a  college  professor,  there  are  duties  that 
can  be  discharged  not  only  successfully  but  perhaps  more  effici- 
ently by  women  than  by  men,  and  in  the  proper  reorganisation 
of  every  business  system  this  will  not  be  lost  from  sight  if  the 
trained  woman  is  available.  But  apart  from  these  clerical  and 
literary  activities  there  are  in  almost  every  line  of  business  and 
at  almost  every  grade  certain  portions  of  the  work  that  call  for 
the  kind  of  skill  that  a  properly  trained  woman  can  furnish  if 
she  can  bring  to  the  task  something  more  than  the  untrained 
labour  of  her  hands  (the  President  of  Simmons  College, 
Social  Education  Quarterly,  March,  1907). 

Philadelphia  has  opened  a  new  High  School  for  Girls,  the 
"William  Penn,"  to  be  inaugurated  September,  1909.  It  will 
take  the  place  of  the  Commerckl  High  School  mentioned 
above,  and  will  contain  five  departments  : — 

I.  Academic. 
II.  Domestic. 

III.  Professional  (for  Dressmaking,  Millinery,  etc.). 

IV.  Commercial. 

V.  Library  Economy. 

The  Principal  Elect  is  the  Director  of  the  School  of  Com- 
merce in  the  Boys'  Central  High  School,  and  is  now  studying 
in  Europe  with  reference  to  the  equipment  of  the  magnificent 
new  building  which  the  school  is  to  have.  (November,  1908.) 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

INDUSTRIAL  EDUCATION— ESPECIALLY  FOR  GIRLS. 

But  rather  let  him  labour,  working  with  his  hands  the  thing  that  is 
good. — PAUL. 

THE  present  movement  for  industrial  education  in  the 
United  States  is  the  most  outstanding  feature  to-day  of 
educational  life  there ;  one  meets  it  at  every  turn.  It  be- 
gan definitely  in  Massachusetts  some  years  ago,  it  has  also 
extended  to  New  York  State,  and  this  year  is  spreading 
all  over  the  country,  a  great  meeting  having  been  held  at 
Chicago  in  January. 

This  movement  has  two  aspects ;  that  in  the  forefront, 
which  is  simple  and  intelligible :  a  demand  for  the  training 
of  young  people  between  fourteen  and  sixteen  years  of  age 
for  trades  and  industries,  e.g.,  the  teaching  of  trade  dress- 
making and  millinery  to  girls.  The  other  is  a  deeper  im- 
pulse which  rolls  the  movement  forward ;  dissatisfaction 
with  education  as  it  is  to-day  for  the  masses  of  the  people 
who  will  enter  industrial  life,  and  a  desire  to  reshape  the 
whole  system  of  the  public  elementary  school  and  to  add 
to  it  continuation  work  in  the  closest  relation  to  industrial 
needs.  Professor  Sadler  in  his  new  book l  gives  an  account 
of  the  movement  (Chapter  XXIII.),  calling  it  "  The  Trend 
Towards  Industrial  Education". 

The  whole  question  undoubtedly  means  a  new  develop- 
ment in  education.  The  work  of  Horace  Mann  sixty  years 

1  Continuation  Schools  in  England  and  Elsewhere.  Manchester  Uni- 
versity Press,  1908. 

248 


Industrial  Education  249 

ago  in  Massachusetts  produced  an  extraordinary  forward 
movement  in  American  education  ;  from  it  have  come  the 
normal  schools,  the  system  of  elementary  education  char- 
acteristic of  America,  and  much  else.  This  wave  seems 
now  to  have  spent  its  force ;  Massachusetts  leaders  of  to- 
day think  that  the  country  is  suffering  because  its  educa- 
tion system  is  not  flexible  enough  to  adapt  itself  to  modern 
conditions.  Ways  of  living  have  changed  completely  in 
the  last  sixty  years ;  the  education  system  must  be  changed 
accordingly. 

No  visitor  to  America  at  present,  whatever  her  own 
educational  interests,  could  fail  to  be  impressed  by  the 
strength  of  this  modern  movement  for  industrial  education. 
Every  one  in  Boston  is  working  at  it,  or  thinking  about  it, 
and  the  new  institutions  that  have  been  established  as 
pioneers,  though  as  yet  struggling  private  foundations,  are 
the  schools  one  must  go  and  see.  For  the  women's  in- 
dustries the  Boston  Trade  School  for  Girls,  674  Massa- 
chusetts Avenue,  and  the  Manhattan  Trade  School  for 
Girls,  209-213  East  Twenty-third  Street,  New  York  City, 
are  discovering  what  can  be  done,  and  they  are  already 
passing  out  of  the  stage  of  initial  experiment  to  that  of 
definite  knowledge  of  what  is  wanted  by  the  industries, 
and  are  therefore  on  the  way  to  assured  success. 

The  State   of   Massachusetts,   which    throughout   the 
history  of  the  republic  has  been  the  leader  in  educational 
progress   of  every   type,   is  taking  the  lead  officially  in 
industrial  education.     New  England  is  to-day  the  leading 
manufacturing  area  of  the  United  States  ;  the  Governor  of 
Massachusetts  in  1905  appointed  a  commission  on  industrial 
and  technical  education  which  has  conducted  an  elaborate 
investigation,  and  issued  reports ;  the  next  step  doubt-N 
less  will  be  the  provision  by  public  money  of  trade  and  j 
technical  schools   after  a  fashion  not  yet   attempted    in  ' 
America. 


250      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

The  causes  of  this  new  movement  are  of  very  great  inter- 
est to  the  students  of  sociology.  The  first  is,  the  scarcity  of 
good  workmen.  "We  are  facing  a  time  when  a  really 
skilful  craftsman  will  be  a  rarity."  "  Nowhere  can  you  see 
a  blacksmith  making  a  shoe  or  a  nail  to-day."  The  ap- 
prenticeship system  is  dead,  and  where  manufacturing  is 
conducted  almost  entirely  by  machinery  it  is  all  but  im- 
possible for  a  youth  to  learn  his  trade  in  the  shops ;  he  can 
only  learn  to  work  one  machine.  Manufacturers  are  feeling 
the  competition  of  the  trained  industrial  workers  of  France 
and  Germany  (England  seems  to  be  considered  as  a  far 
less  serious  competitor).  It  is  the  demand  of  the  American 
employer  for  skilled  workmen  which  gives  the  movement 
its  practical  driving  power ;  there  is,  of  course,  as  here, 
opposition  from  the  labour  unions,  but  this  does  not  seem 
to  be  considered  very  serious;  with  the  optimism  of 
America,  people  think  it  will  be  easily  overcome. 

A  second  cause  which  has  much  to  do  with  the  deeper 
side,  the  demand  for  a  reformed  education,  is  the  drift  of 
the  population  into  towns.  In  the  old  days  the  boy  and 
girl  under  rural  conditions  received  an  excellent  form  of 
industrial  education,  through  helping  in  the  activities  of  the 
home.  "  The  best  that  the  school  system  can  do  is  to  re- 
store in  part  the  rich  industrial  inheritance  of  fifty  years 
ago."  This  change  has  injured  girls  particularly,  as  we 
know  in  England  ;  they  do  not  help  in  the  home  as  they 
did,  and  they  go  out  to  work  in  the  factories.  One  need 
not  labour  this  subject,  which  is  so  familiar  at  home,  especi- 
ally as  the  cause  of  the  high  infant  mortality  which  disgraces 
our  industrial  districts. 

The  third  cause  is  not  found  in  England  :  the  fact  that 
boys  and  girls  are  not  wanted  in  American  industries  till 
sixteen  or  eighteen  years  of  age.  This  is  very  clearly 
shown  by  the  investigations  of  the  Massachusetts  Com- 
mission ;  employers  state  that  they  will  not  take  young 


Industrial  Education  251 

people  until  at  least  sixteen,  and  they  prefer  them  at 
eighteen.  The  legal  age  when  a  youth  may  leave  school 
is  fourteen,  and,  in  spite  of  the  provision  of  free  education  in 
grammar  and  high  schools,  enormous  numbers  of  children 
drop  out  as  soon  as  the  legal  age  is  reached.  This  is 
not  due  mainly  to  poverty  and  the  need  to  work  ;  it  is 
due  to  the  child,  who  wishes  to  leave  school  and  begin  to 
work  at  something.  "  It  is  age  which  brings  the  child 
desire  to  begin  to  do  something  ;  at  fourteen  he  is  physi- 
cally ready,  and  mentally  and  morally  anxious  to  cease 
imitating  and  to  become  creative."  What  does  the  child 
do,  it  may  be  asked,  at  fourteen  if  the  regular  industries 
will  not  take  him,  or  her?  They  engage  in  unskilled 
labour  of  all  sorts,  badly  paid,  irregular,  uneducative,  and, 
so  the  authorities  say,  very  often  demoralising  ;  so  that  at 
sixteen,  after  drifting  about  from  one  unskilled  occupation 
to  another,  the  boy  or  girl  is  a  much  less  efficient  worker 
than  on  leaving  school  at  fourteen.  The  "  wasted  years  " 
is  the  phrase  used  for  this  aspect  of  the  question,  which  also- 
has  great  influence  on  public  opinion,  and  on  the  driving 
power  of  the  movement.  All  these  facts  were  definitely 
proved  in  an  investigation  conducted  for  the  Massachusetts 
Commission  by  Susan  M.  Kingsbury,  Ph.D.  She  found 
that  in  the  little  State  of  Massachusetts  25,0x30  children 
between  fourteen  and  sixteen  were  either  at  work  or  idle  ; 
her  report  which  is  a  model  of  this  kind  of  work  is  to  be 
found  in  the  1906  Report  of  the  Commission  ;  it  includes  a 
description  upon  what  the  value  of  the  years  from  fourteen 
to  sixteen  might  be  to  girls,  by  the  Director  of  the  Boston 
Trade  School,  Miss  Marshall.  Further  testimony  to  this 
need  for  trade  education  is  given  by  the  extraordinary 
extent  of  the  correspondence  schools  established  for  private 
profit,  advertising  largely  in  the  American  magazines,  and 
undertaking  by  correspondence  to  train  people  for  all  sorts 
of  positions  in  the  world  of  industry  ;  they  have  grown  to 


252       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

enormous  dimensions,  and  draw  in  very  large  revenues  from 
working-people,  who  take  these  correspondence  courses, 
hoping  thus  to  improve  their  economic  position. 

As  to  the  remedy,  it  is  obvious  that  the  years  from  four- 
teen to  sixteen  might  very  well  be  filled  up  by  attendance 
at  trade  schools ;  it  has  been  proved  already  that  pupils 
can  learn  their  trade  under  these  conditions,  and  that  their 
wages  are  even  doubled  after  a  year's  course.  It  might  be 
thought  that  manual  training,  particularly  in  the  manual 
training  high  schools,  might  have  done  much  for  industrial 
education,  but  this  has  not  happened ;  it  was  not  ex- 
pected ;  manual  training  was  definitely  intended  not  to 
teach  a  trade,  but  to  be  a  part  of  general  education.  It 
is  found  in  practice  that  youths  who  have  gone  through  a 
manual  training  high  school  rarely  become  craftsmen ; 
they  are  much  more  likely  to  become  managers  of  en- 
gineering works. 

Trade  schools  must,  of  course,  depend  on  the  conditions 
of  the  district,  but  for  girls  they  will  probably  include  the 
needle  trades  in  some  form  or  another,  and  training  in  do- 
mestic duties,  since  girls  of  this  type  ultimately  marry  and 
have  homes  of  their  own.  The  Manhattan  Trade  School 
in  New  York  City,  directed  by  Mrs.  Mary  S.  Woolman, 
Professor  of  Domestic  Art  at  Teachers'  College,  Columbia, 
has  now  reached  an  established  position  after  five  years' 
work.  It  is,  be  it  understood,  an  institution  established 
by  private  persons  who  believe  in  the  thing,  and  are 
willing  to  find  money  to  run  it;  most  of  the  leaders  of 
education  in  New  York  are  connected  with  it.  Its  aim 
is  not  only  to  teach  girls,  but  also  "to  teach  the  com- 
munity at  large  how  best  to  accomplish  such  training 
and  to  stand  as  a  model  school,  whose  advice  and  help 
can  facilitate  the  founding  of  the  best  kind  of  school  for 
the  lowest  rank  of  women  workers ".  It  has  discovered 
that  one  of  the  best  things  to  do  is  to  train  girls  to  operate 


Industrial  Education  253 

machines  driven  by  electric  power,  not  only  for  making 
clothing,  but  for  doing  embroidery,  and  making  the  elabor- 
ate trimmings  which  are  so  much  used  to-day  for  ladies' 
dresses.  Dressmaking  of  every  type  is  very  carefully 
taught,  and  the  practical  character  of  the  work  is  insured 
by  the  school  making  garments  for  customers,  wholesale 
and  retail ;  millinery  and  straw-hat  making  are  also  taught. 
For  those  girls  who  have  no  taste  whatever  in  the  clothing 
trades  the  use  of  paste  or  glue  in  making  fancy  articles, 
boxes,  etc.,  is  taught ;  this  in  New  York  is  a  trade  where 
good  wages  can  be  earned.  Every  girl  receives  instruction 
in  art,  in  business  arithmetic,  English,  and  in  civics,  and 
physical  training.  The  instruction,  of  course,  is  quite 
free ;  in  many  cases  the  girls  need  some  maintenance 
money ;  the  families  are  often  exceedingly  poor,  and  the 
appearance  of  the  girls,  though  neat  and  clean,  shows  that 
they  are  of  a  less  intellectual  type.  Very  few  have  gone 
through  the  grammar  grades  in  the  elementary  school, 
graduated  that  is  ;  they  are  often  undersized  and  badly 
fed,  and  naturally  in  New  York  are  largely  foreign  born. 
Girls  of  this  type  generally  have  to  stay  in  the  school  for 
two  years,  but  with  the  business  depression  the  school  is 
now  drawing  on  girls  of  a  higher  type  who  are  out  of  work, 
and  go  ahead  rapidly  during  one  year.  Perfect  silence 
is  maintained  in  the  workrooms,  a  fact  impressive  to  a 
visitor  ;  it  was  stated  that  since  this  was  the  rule  in  the  in- 
dustries, and  that  employers  would  not  take  girls  who  were 
accustomed  to  talk  while  working,  the  school  had  estab- 
lished the  custom,  and  certainly  seemed  to  find  no  difficulty 
in  enforcing  it  Some  470  girls  were  admitted  in  1907  ; 
the  cost  for  the  year  ending  1907  is  $67,000  (.£13,000) ; 
pioneer  work  is  always  expensive.  Employers  are  in  close 
relation  with  the  Manhattan  Trade  School,  and  thus  they 
have  no  trouble  in  placing  their  girls. 

The  Boston  Trade  School  is  considered  to  have  different 


254      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

characteristics,  and  certainly  the  Boston  conditions  are  not 
the  same ;  the  trades  available  for  girls  are  not  the  same 
as  those  in  New  York.  Dressmaking  seems  relatively 
more  important,  and  straw-hat  making ;  the  operating  of 
power  machines  is  not  so  advantageous  a  trade  as  in  New 
York ;  it  is,  however,  very  difficult  for  a  stranger  to  judge. 
The  school  is  free  to  all  girls  between  fourteen  and  seven- 
teen. "  It  aims  to  prepare  girls  to  earn  a  better  living  than 
is  possible  for  the  cash  girl,  the  candy-factory  girl,  the 
errand  girl,  and  girls  who  enter  similar  unskilled  employ- 
ments. It  teaches  dressmaking,  millinery,  straw  machine 
operating,  clothing  machine  operating,  design,  domestic 
science,  physical  education."  The  hours  are  from  8.30  to  5 
every  day  except  Saturday;  in  the  new  building  it  can 
take  1 50  girls ;  much  emphasis  is  laid  on  domestic  teaching, 
the  girls  taking  it  in  turns  to  help  with  the  daily  lunch, 
planning  and  cooking  cheap  hot  dishes  for  the  other  girls 
to  supplement  the  cold  food  brought  from  home.  Great 
attention  fis  paid  to  art  work  and  design.  This  school,  too, 
finds  no  difficulty  in  placing  pupils. 

The  value  of  the  training  which  girls  are  receiving  in  these 
schools  is  apparent  even  to  the  casual  visitor.  The  effect  of 
the  work  in  domestic  science  upon  the  school  luncheon,  where 
everything  is  orderly  and  attractive,  the  earnestness  with  which 
the  work  in  millinery  and  dressmaking  is  carried  on,  and  the 
application  of  the  principles  of  design  and  colour  to  the  deco- 
ration of  the  schoolrooms,  show  clearly  that  these  schools  are 
helping  to  develop  domestic  and  womanly  traits  of  the  character 
(Commission  Report). 

It  is  easy  to  understand  what  these  pioneer  schools  are 
doing,  and  how  valuable  might  be  the  establishment  of 
trade  schools  of  various  kinds  for  young  people  between 
fourteen  and  sixteen  who  otherwise  would  waste  their  time 
in  idleness  or  unskilled  occupations.  The  great  question 
of  a  reform  in  education  to  meet  the  changes  in  social 


Industrial  Education  255 

life  is  a  much  more  difficult  thing  to  understand  and  to 
discuss ;  one  cannot  think,  however,  that  it  is  a  mere  fad. 
The  schools  do  not  train  workmen.  We  find  the  New 
York  State  Commissioner  of  Education,  Dr.  Andrew  S. 
Draper,  in  his  Annual  Report  for  igoS,1  saying: — 

From  the  bottom  to  the  top  of  the  school  system  the  eye  is  on 
the  school  above,  and  the  school  above  leads  to  a  professional 
or  a  managing  employment  rather  than  a  trade  vocation. 

Good  citizenship,  he  says,  is  dependent  on  workmen. 
Professor  McMurry  of  Teachers'  College,  Columbia,  feels 
the  lack  of  practical  work  of  the  existing  elementary 
school  curriculum,  and  the  excessively  theoretical  character 
of  high  school  and  college  courses.  The  Massachusetts 
Commission  recommend : — 

That  cities  and  towns  so  modify  the  work  in  the  elementary 
schools  as  to  include  for  boys  and  girls  instruction  and  practice 
in  the  elements  of  productive  industry,  including  agriculture  and 
the  mechanical  and  domestic  arts,  and  that  this  instruction  be 
of  such  a  character  as  to  secure  from  it  the  highest  culture  as 
well  as  the  highest  industrial  value ;  and  that  the  work  in  the 
high  schools  be  modified  so  that  the  instruction  in  mathematics, 
the  sciences  and  drawing  shall  show  the  application  and  use  of 
these  subjects  in  industrial  life,  with  especial  reference  to  local 
industries,  so  that  the  students  may  see  that  these  subjects  are 
not  designed  primarily  and  solely  for  academic  purposes,  but 
that  they  may  be  utilised  for  the  purposes  of  practical  life. 
That  is,  algebra  and  geometry  should  be  so  taught  in  the  public 
schools  as  to  show  their  relation  to  construction  ;  botany  to 
horticulture,  and  agricultural  chemistry  to  agriculture,  manu- 
factures and  domestic  sciences  ;  and  drawing  to  every  form  of 
industry. 

From  another  side  a  modification  of  the  school  course  is 
demanded  to  give  much  greater  moral  and  social  value ; 
1 " Our  Children,  our  Schools  and  our  Industries."     Albany,  N.Y.,  1908. 


256       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

Mr.  James  P.  Munroe,  a  leading  Boston  manufacturer  and 
merchant,  in  the  Educational  Review  says  : — 

These,  it  seems  to  me,  are  main  truths  in  education :  (i)  that 
we  must  educate  individuals  not  masses ;  (2)  that  we  must  train 
the  child  as  a  part  of  a  family  and  a  neighbourhood,  not  as  an 
isolated  unit ;  (3)  that  we  must  develop  a  child  by  sympathy 
and  interest,  not  instruct  him  by  compulsion ;  (4)  that  we  must 
reckon  with  and  enlist  all  the  social  forces  (the  school  being  but 
one)  which  are  moulding  the  child's  life ;  (5)  that  we  must  strive 
for  a  steady  and  harmonious  development  of  all  three  sides  of 
the  child :  his  body,  his  mind,  and  his  soul ;  and  (6)  that  we 
must  ever  keep  in  view  as  the  true  goal  of  education,  not  book 
learning  for  the  individual,  but  social  and  moral  life  for  the 
community. 

Professor  Thorndike  of  Columbia  says  : — 

One  main  cause  of  elimination  is  (i.e.  of  pupils  from  school) 
incapacity  for  and  lack  of  interest  in  the  sort  of  intellectual  work 
demanded  by  the  present  courses  of  study. 

President  Roosevelt  himself  has  stated  the  same  view: — 

If  boys  and  girls  are  trained  merely  in  literary  accomplish- 
ments to  the  total  exclusion  of  industrial,  manual,  and  technical 
training,  the  tendency  is  to  unfit  them  for  industrial  work  and 
to  make  them  reluctant  to  go  into  it,  or  unfitted  to  do  well  if 
they  do  go  into  it. 

Educators  as  well  as  public  men  and  manufacturers  in 
America  are  moving  for  reform  ;  the  group  work  described 
in  Chapter  IV.  means  training  for  social  life.  The  Dewey 
curriculum  mentioned  on  pages  87  and  174  is  an  attempt  to 
make  the  school  practical,  the  foundation  of  Simmons  Col- 
lege (Chapter  VI.),  all  these,  and  many  other  facts  which 
more  extended  study  would  find,  point  in  the  one  direction. 
It  is  profoundly  significant  that  the  leading  official  of  the 
Massachusetts  Commission  on  Industrial  Education  should 
be  Paul  H.  Hanus,  Professor  of  Education  at  Harvard ; 


Industrial  Education  257 

Americans  seem  to  feel  that  on  the  solution  of  this  problem 
of  industrial  education  depends  the  economic  future  of  their 
industries,  the  chances  of  their  success  in  the  international 
competition  which  every  year  makes  more  severe  and  yet 
more  inevitable.  They  spare  no  pains  and  no  money  in 
preparing  their  young  people  of  the  future ;  they  cannot 
afford  to  waste  the  youth  of  the  nation. 

What  have  we  to  learn  ?  It  is  said  that  an  American 
visitor  to  some  English  works  was  shown  machinery  for 
that  utilisation  of  waste  products  which  has  brought 
fortunes  to  so  many  English  manufacturers.  "  Yes,"  said 
the  American,  "what  you  waste  are  men"  We  are  careful 
enough  of  their  lives,  with  our  coroner's  inquest,  and 
Board  of  Trade  investigations,  far  more  careful  than 
America,  but  we  have  wasted  the  true  wealth  of  a  nation 
— men — by  our  neglect  in  the  past  This  has  left  on  our 
hands  a  mass  of  incapables,  an  enormous  population  below 
the  poverty  line,  a  dead- weight  of  human  inefficiency 
which  hinders  and  harms  at  every  turn  national  prosperity 
and  growth,  as  well  as  national  health  and  morals.  If 
we  are  to  hold  our  own  with  Germany,  America,  and 
Japan  in  the  great  international  struggle,  we  must  deal 
with  this  inefficient  horde  in  such  a  way  as  to  turn  them 
and  (if  this  be  impossible)  their  children  into  useful  mem- 
bers of  the  social  organism.  No  one  reform  alone  will 
do  this,  but  one  way  out  is  to  be  found  in  industrial 
education. 

[A  recent  article  in  the  Educational  Review,  October,  1908,  by  Henry  C. 
Morrison,  State  Superintendent,  New  Hampshire,  strongly  opposes  in- 
dustrial education.  He  thinks  general  education  should  be  improved,  and 
dreads  the  stratification  of  society  which  the  training  of  workmen  as  such 
would  produce.] 


CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  PLACE  OF  WOMEN  IN  AMERICAN  EDUCATION. 

A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 

To  warn,  to  comfort  and  command. — WORDSWORTH. 

IT  is  generally  considered  that  American  women  have 
greater  advantages  in  education  than  their  English  sisters, 
and  this  is  largely  true.  For  many  years  they  have  had 
full  opportunities  in  every  type  of  institution,  even  post- 
graduate work  being  opened  to  them  at  conservative  in- 
stitutions like  Yale,  when  once  it  was  shown  that  women 
were  ready  to  profit  by  this  instruction.  It  is  also  custom- 
ary for  girls  to  receive  more  education  than  boys ;  they 
stay  longer  in  school,  since  the  attraction  of  practical  life 
is  not  so  strong  for  them.  In  families  which  send  their 
children  to  college,  not  only  are  the  girls  sent  as  a  matter  of 
course  like  the  boys,  but  the  girls  will  go  when  the  boys 
may  not.  Women  of  the  wealthier  classes  are  the  only 
people  in  America  who  have  leisure,  and  they  continue 
their  education  by  study,  lectures,  and  meetings  well  into 
adult  life.  Public  opinion  thinks  it  right  for  both  families 
and  the  community  to  spend  a  greater  amount  on  girls' 
education  than  is  the  case  in  England ;  just  as  property  in 
America  is  held  more  largely  by  women  than  with  us. 

Equality  of  opportunity  in  learning  has  largely  come 
about  through  the  custom  of  co-education.  Girls  went  to  the 
common  school  with  their  brothers  when  in  the  eighteenth 
century  it  began  to  be  considered  desirable  for  girls  to  have 
an  education  at  all ;  in  the  academies  girls  were  also 

258 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     259 

allowed  to  attend,  though  in  the  early  nineteenth  century 
many  separate  schools  for  girls,  female  seminaries  as  they 
were  called,  were  founded.  Women's  college  education 
has  followed  two  streams :  one  begins  with  Oberlin,  Ohio, 
which  opened  its  doors  to  women  in  1833,  and  became 
a  college  in  1850,  and  with  the  opening  of  the  University 
of  Michigan  in  1871  ;  it  flows  to  this  day  with  increased 
volume  and  importance.  The  other,  the  system  of  separate 
institutions,  rises  with  the  foundation  of  Vassar  College 
in  1865;  and  this  also  still  continues  to  spread.  When 
the  era  of  the  public  high  schools  opened,  the  idea  of  girls 
receiving  an  education  had  already  been  generally  accepted, 
and  thus  these  are  almost  entirely  co-educational,  except 
in  the  South,  and  in  some  Eastern  cities,  chiefly  Philadelphia, 
Boston,  and  New  York.  In  Boston  the  separate  public  high 
schools  for  girls  were  founded  only  because  the  boys'  schools 
had  been  in  existence  for  so  long ;  it  was  simpler  in  Boston 
to  have  a  separate  girls'  Latin  school  (founded  1875).  In 
the  suburbs  of  Boston,  and  in  New  England  generally,  the 
public  high  school  is  co-educational. 

This  method  is  to  Americans  so  natural,  simple,  and 
convenient  that  it  is  taken  as  a  matter  of  course ;  there  is, 
so  far  as  the  present  writer  could  ascertain,  no  reaction 
against  it  in  the  schools.  The  eminent  authority  of  Dr. 
Stanley  Hall  is,  of  course,  recognised,  though  his  views  are 
strongly  controverted  by  many,  but  so  far  no  impression 
seems  to  have  been  made  on  a  method  so  fortified  by 
tradition.  In  conversation  both  men  and  women  teachers 
admit  the  danger  of  physical  overstrain  to  girls,  who  are 
working  side  by  side  with  boys  during  the  years  of  growth 
and  development,  but  there  is  no  other  difficulty  to  be 
ascertained.  Men  who  have  been  through  co-educational 
high  schools  say  that  the  age  at  which  attraction  takes  place 
between  the  sexes  is,  in  general,  after  school  life  is  over ; 
that  boys  and  girls  take  very  little  notice  of  one  another  in 

17* 


260       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

school  (which  is  indeed  what  one  observes),  and  that  any 
exceptional  case  can  be  very  easily  dealt  with.  Intellectu- 
ally, as  we  have  said  (p.  26),  and  in  discipline,  the 
schools  profit  by  co-education ;  it  would  probably  not  be 
possible  to  get  such  discussions  in  a  history  lesson,  for  ex- 
ample, were  girls  only  present,  as  those  the  writer  heard 
in  the  Horace  Mann  High  School  mixed  classes. 

The  physical  difficulty  seems  to  be  met  to  some  extent 
by  the  very  great  care  and  detailed  supervision  of  the  girls' 
health  given  by  the  gymnasium  mistress,  who  often  enters 
into  close  personal  relations  with  the  girls,  gives  them 
advice  on  personal  hygiene,  allows  for  occasional  absence, 
and  looks  after  any  girl  who  may  be  taken  ill  in  school,  and 
without  whose  help  the  system  would  probably  be  much 
more  injurious  to  the  girls'  physique  than  it  is. 

There  are,  however,  certain  features  in  American  life 
which  should  be  carefully  considered  by  those  who  would 
draw  from  American  experience  arguments  for  co-education 
in  English  secondary  schools.  The  first  is  the  universal 
respect  for  women,  who  are  treated  as  a  distinctly  superior 
order  of  beings.  This  comes  out  in  all  sorts  of  ways,  and 
is  especially  noticeable  by  a  woman  travelling  alone 
through  America.  The  courtesy,  kindness,  and  considera- 
tion, shown  by  absolute  strangers  to  such  a  one  just  be- 
cause she  is  a  woman,  are  most  striking,  and  seem  very 
different  from  what  the  travelling  Englishman  appears  to 
receive.  The  tone  of  the  school  naturally  follows  the 
tone  of  the  community,  and  this  makes  the  position  of 
the  girls  in  a  co-educational  school  very  much  easier  and 
pleasanter.  Then,  again,  the  standard  of  work  for  the  boys 
is,  according  to  English  teachers  (see  Mosely  Commission 
Report),  not  as  high  as  with  us,  and  the  boys  therefore 
do  not  work  as  hard.  If  they  did,  the  work  would  be  too 
hard  for  the  girls,  and  where  in  America  the  standards  are 
highest  this  difficulty  is  actually  found.  The  absence  of 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     261 

examination  strain  and  the  prevalence  of  the  free  elective 
system  also  make  work  for  the  girls  easier  than  it  would 
otherwise  be,  for  they  choose  the  subjects  that  suit  them. 
Most  important  of  all  for  the  case  of  a  co-educational 
system  is  the  fact  that,  as  we  have  said,  the  American 
public  high  school  does  not  attempt  to  train  character  as 
we  do,  and  therefore  the  particular  personal  influence  of 
the  man  on  the  growing  youth,  and  of  the  woman  on  the 
growing  girl,  which  acts  more  effectively  and  thoroughly 
in  a  separate  school,  does  not  enter  into  the  question.  In 
the  private  schools,  where  this  influence  and  training  are 
definitely  part  of  the  aim,  separation,  as  in  England,  is 
general ;  the  boys  are  either  in  military  academies,  or  in 
schools  modelled  on  Eton  and  Rugby,  or  in  the  new  farm 
schools,  and  the  girls  are  in  private  boarding-schools  under 
the  strong  personal  influence  of  women  of  high  culture. 
It  does  not  appear,  however,  that  the  parents  who  do  not 
send  their  children  to  the  public  school  are  at  all  in- 
fluenced by  any  theoretic  objection  to  co-education ;  as 
we  have  seen  in  Chapter  II.,  their  reasons  have  nothing  to 
do  with  this. 

The  reaction  against  co-education  in  America  shows  it- 
self not  in  schools  but  in  colleges.  It  appears  to  arise,  in 
the  first  instance,  among  the  men  undergraduates  who  ob- 
ject to  the  presence  of  women  in  large  numbers  in  the  classes. 
One  comes  across  this  in  conversation  with  instructors, 
younger  members  of  college  faculties  who  are  naturally  still 
in  touch  with  undergraduate  life,  but  presidents  and  other 
senior  officials  state  the  fact  quite  openly.  A  very  full 
treatment  of  the  difficulties  is  given  by  President  Van  Hise 
of  Wisconsin  in  his  address  to  the  Association  of  Collegiate 
Alumnae  in  October  last  on  their  twenty-fifth  anniversary ; 
the  address  is  given  in  full  in  the  Educational  Review, 
December,  1907.  He  begins  by  pointing  out  that  State 
universities  became  co-educational  owing  to  their  public 


262       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

character,  and  the  demand  of  women  for  higher  education, 
and  that  the  moral  and  intellectual  difficulties  feared  in 
advance  by  opponents  of  co-education  have  not  resulted. 
Two  unforeseen  difficulties  have,  however,  arisen,  both 
owing  to  the  very  large  numbers  of  women  now  attend- 
ing ;  difficulties  which  did  not  appear  during  the  earlier 
years  when  a  small  number  of  very  earnest  and  thoughtful 
women  availed  themselves  of  these  new  opportunities. 
The  first  is  concerned  with  social  life ;  we  quote  President 
Van  Rise's  own  words  : — 

The  presence  in  the  same  institution  of  a  certain  percentage 
of  men  and  women,  both  with  no  very  serious  purpose,  has  un- 
doubtedly led  to  a  co- educational  problem,  that  of  social  affairs, 
upon  which  this  association  has  been  seriously  at  work  for 
some  years  past  and  which  is  yet  far  from  a  satisfactory  solution. 
In  the  State  universities  a  number  of  steps  have  been  taken 
during  the  past  few  years  toward  the  regulation  of  social 
affairs,  and  it  is  my  expectation  that  we  shall  go  farther  before 
the  conditions  are  reasonably  satisfactory. 

In  reference  to  this  problem  I  shall  mention  merely  one  diffi- 
culty which  seems  to  me  to  have  been  frequently  overlooked 
and  which  must  be  fully  considered  in  working  out  a  solution. 
In  women's  colleges  the  women  set  their  own  standards.  That 
woman  is  successful  who  takes  a  leading  part  in  scholastic 
work — in  the  literary  society,  in  dramatics,  in  athletics,  and 
other  forms  of  college  life.  The  young  woman  to  be  a  success 
in  a  women's  college  must  win  her  success  by  exactly  the  same 
qualities  of  leadership  and  of  service  in  the  college  to  the  col- 
lege community  required  by  the  young  man  to  win  a  prominent 
position.  In  the  co-educational  institution  there  is  a  tendency 
for  the  men  to  fix  the  standards  not  only  for  themselves  but  for 
the  women.  With  the  increase  in  numbers  of  men  and  women 
in  co-educational  institutions  with  no  very  serious  purpose,  there 
is  undoubtedly  a  tendency  among  the  women  to  regard  as  suc- 
cessful the  one  who  is  attractive  to  the  young  men — in  other 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     263 

words,  social  availability  rather  than  intellectual  leadership  is 
regarded  by  at  least  a  considerable  number  of  the  young  women 
as  the  basis  of  a  successful  college  career.  While  this  view 
may  seem  absurd,  a  little  reflection  will  convince  one  that  the 
tendency  is  perfectly  natural — indeed,  is  as  deep-seated  as  many 
of  the  most  firmly  established  traditions  in  reference  to  the 
relations  between  the  sexes.  So  far  as  I  can  see,  this  obstacle 
will  always  be  a  real  one  in  co-educational  institutions. 

At  Wisconsin  steps  have  been  taken  to  limit  the 
number  of  parties,  and  to  check  the  excessive  amount  of 
social  diversion  which  seems  to  have  had  a  tendency  to 
injure  the  more  important  purposes  of  university  life. 

The  other  difficulty  is  that  certain  courses  of  study,  es- 
pecially the  literary  and  humanistic,  have  become  so 
popular  with  women  that  they  in  such  work  greatly  out- 
number the  men.1  When  this  happens  the  men  will  not 
elect  these  courses ;  this  danger  is  even  more  serious  at 

'The  educational  opportunities  of  the  stronger  universities  of  the  West 
have  been  eagerly  seized  by  the  young  women,  and,  according  to  reports 
furnished  for  1906-7,  the  numbers  of  women  and  men  in  the  college  of 
liberal  arts,  or  literature,  arts,  and  sciences,  of  several  State  universities, 
were  as  follows : — 


University. 
California  . 
Illinois 

No.  of  women. 
98? 
420 
654 

No.  of  men. 
582 

475 
912 

471 

Kansas 
Michigan  . 
Minnesota 

393 
699 
879 

M0 

382 
992 
465 
404 

•114 

Ohio 
Texas 

Washington 
Wisconsin 

292 
.          .          .          .          448 
.          .          .          .          487 
838 

324 
369 
209 
1,  008 

See  also  "The  Intellectual  Reactions  of  Co-education"  (Educational 
Review,  May,  1908).  Address  delivered  before  the  Social  Education  Con- 
ference, Boston,  March,  1908,  by  Dr.  Julius  Sachs  of  Teachers'  College. 


264       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

some  other  universities  than  at  Wisconsin,  which  means 
that  the  men  in  them  are  deserting  liberal  studies  alto- 
gether. Conversely,  women  do  not  elect  such  courses  as 
political  economy,  taken  by  a  large  number  of  men,  and 
they  do  not  attend  the  Departments  of  Engineering,  Law, 
Commerce,  Agriculture,  except  very  rarely ;  even  medicine 
is  followed  by  few.  President  Van  Hise  calls  this  natural 
segregation,  and  he  recognises  it  as  inevitable.  He  sug- 
gests that,  as  the  numbers  in  the  State  universities  are 
large,  and  the  lectures  must  be  repeated  to  different  sections, 
the  men  and  women  should  be  segregated  for  history, 
literature,  Latin,  etc. 

In  subjects  such  as  language,  literature,  political  economy, 
history  and  mathematics  in  a  large  institution,  there  are  many 
divisions.  There  is  no  reason  whatever  why  a  course  already 
given  in  a  number  of  sections  should  not  provide  divisions 
primarily  for  the  men  and  others  primarily  for  the  women.  If 
the  actual  opportunities  of  women  will  be  enlarged  by  offering 
courses  in  political  economy  for  them,  perhaps  adapted  to 
their  special  interests  when  they  otherwise  would  not  pursue 
this  subject  because  of  the  number  of  men,  why  should  not 
this  be  done  ?  If  the  opportunities  of  the  men  will  be  en- 
larged by  offering  courses  in  literature  for  them,  when  otherwise 
they  would  not  take  such  course  because  of  the  large  number 
of  women,  what  valid  objection  can  be  urged  to  the  proposal  ? 
Why  should  there  not  be  given  a  course  in  ethics  for  men 
alone  ? 

At  the  University  of  Washington,  President  Kane  says  that 
in  some  of  the  subjects  in  which  there  are  a  large  number  of 
students  the  sections  are  so  scheduled  that  women  only  are  in 
certain  sections  and  men  only  in  others.  He  goes  on  to  say 
in  effect :  "  I  am  strongly  in  favour,  also,  of  a  division  of  the 
sexes  into  separate  classes  in  the  departments  in  which  our 
freshmen  and  sophomores  work.  There  are  in  many  depart- 
ments a  half-dozen  or  more  sections  doing  the  same  work,  so  that 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     265 

a  division  can  be  made  with  very  little  difficulty  and  without 
added  expenditure  for  the  instructional  force.  In  these  de- 
partments I  shall  favour,  unless  our  experience  goes  contrary 
to  my  conjecture,  the  definite  plan  of  separate  sections  for  the 
men  and  women." 

This  plan  would  meet  the  problem  of  separation,  and  un- 
doubtedly some  professors  find  that  they  need  to  lecture 
differently  to  men  and  to  women. 

In  the  University  of  Chicago  the  difficulties  have  been 
met  by  segregating  the  men  and  women  for  the  first  and 
second  years  of  the  college  course ;  at  the  Leland  Stan- 
ford Universities  in  California,  and  the  Wesleyan  Univer- 
sity in  Connecticut,  the  number  of  women  admitted  has 
been  limited.  The  separate  women's  colleges  and  the 
separate  men's  colleges  are  increasing  in  numbers,  and 
there  is,  it  is  said,  a  tendency  for  men  to  prefer  to  go  to 
separate  colleges.  This  reaction  against  co-education  in 
college,  whilst  there  is  no  objection  to  it  in  school,  seems 
very  extraordinary  to  an  English  observer ;  in  England 
the  general  opinion  perhaps  would  reverse  these  positions. 
It  is  stated  by  some  Americans  that  there  are  two  non- 
intellectual  considerations  that  cause  these  difficulties  to 
be  felt  at  college.  The  first  is  that  the  young  people  are 
away  from  home  and  are  living  under  artificial  conditions. 
While  attending  the  day  school,  living  the  ordinary- 
family  life,  and  under  home  influences,  young  people  be- 
have in  a  simple  natural  fashion  ;  when  they  go  to  college 
they  have  to  take  care  of  themselves.  It  must  be  re- 
membered in  this  connection  that  the  elaborate  tutorial 
and  disciplinary  system  in  our  English  colleges  does  not 
exist  in  a  great  American  State  university ;  even  in  a  separ- 
ate college  much  greater  freedom  is  allowed  than  in 
England.  The  other  influence  is  psychological ;  Ameri- 
cans say  that  the  mutual  attraction  between  young  men 
and  young  women  is  much  stronger  at  the  college  age,  and 


266       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

that  it  does  not  appear  in  school  life,  except  possibly  in 
the  last  year.  If  these  authorities  are  right,  the  difficulty 
of  too  much  social  life  referred  to  by  President  Van  Hise 
is  easily  explained. 

There  is  another  objection  against  co-education  in  the 
university  which  seems  very  extraordinary  to  an  English- 
woman, and  that  is  in  reference  to  graduate  work,  which, 
it  will  be  remembered,  is  special  work  of  a  high  quality 
similar  to  that  done  by  students  for  a  tripos  at  Cambridge. 
There  seems  to  be  a  feeling,  which  the  chivalry  of  Ameri- 
can men  allows  only  to  be  expressed  quietly  and  with  great 
reserve,  that  the  admission  of  women  to  graduate  depart- 
ments lowers  the  standard  of  work,  and  that  the  men 
would  very  much  rather  not  have  them  there.  We  will 
again  quote  President  Van  Hise : — 

The  president  of  one  large  State  University  says  that  the  pre- 
sence of  women  does  tend  to  lower  the  standard  of  graduate 
work,  for  the  simple  reason  that  women  do  not  incline  to  re- 
search. While  I  should  hesitate  to  assent  to  this  statement,  it 
does  appear  to  be  a  fact  that  the  percentage  of  women  who  are 
willing  to  work  at  the  same  subject  six  hours  a  day  for  three 
hundred  days  in  the  year  is  much  smaller  than  among  the  men. 
But  this  quality  is  essential  for  success  in  research.  Thus 
while  the  intellectual  success  of  the  women  in  undergraduate 
work  is  unquestioned,  there  is  still  question  on  the  part  of  some 
as  to  the  rank  they  are  to  take  in  the  graduate  school  and  in 
creative  work. 

The  experience  in  the  English  colleges  for  women  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  of  the  Honours  Schools  at 
co-educational  universities  like  London  and  Manchester, 
would  not,  we  think,  confirm  the  American  view,  though  it 
is  probably  a  fact  that  the  presence  of  women  students  is 
not  popular  with  undergraduates  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  the  movement  for  women's 
education  in  England  has  proceeded  on  the  lines  of  separ- 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     267 

ate  schools  for  girls,  and  of  urgent  demand  for  admission  to 
the  universities  on  equal  terms  with  men.  The  separate 
women's  college,  like  Vassar  or  Bryn  Mawr,  giving  its  own 
degrees,  never  has  been  demanded  in  England. 

Having  noted  the  position  of  women  as  learners  we  may 
now  consider  them  as  teachers  ;  as  every  one  knows,  they 
are  in  a  large  majority  in  the  common  schools.  It  is  said 
in  New  England  that  over  90  per  cent,  of  the  teachers  in 
the  public  schools  are  women,  and  that  many  boys  go- 
right  through  their  education  up  to  fourteen  years  of  age, 
and  pass  out  into  life  without  ever  having  been  under  the 
influence  of  a  man  at  school.  The  Mosely  Commissioners 
speak  again  and  again  about  this,  and  Americans  admit 
that  it  is  an  unfortunate  state  of  affairs.  A  discussion  is 
going  on  at  present  in  the  Educational  Review  as  to  why 
teaching  repels  men.  It  was  stated  that  in  the  ten  years 
ending  1906  the  number  of  men  teachers  decreased  24 
per  cent.  The  financial  question  is  undoubtedly  the  funda- 
mental reason  ;  salaries  are  not  high,  and  a  better  quality 
of  teacher  can  be  got  at  the  same  rate  if  women  are  taken. 

The  Mosely  Commissioners  did  not  emphasise  the  fact 
that  the  small  minority  of  men  in  the  common  school  are 
found  in  the  position  of  principal  teachers  and  senior  as- 
sistants. This  would  probably  appear  natural  to  them, 
being  men  themselves.  From  this  small  minority  come 
the  superintendents  and  directing  officials,  the  heads  of 
normal  colleges  and  schools,  who,  speaking  generally,  seem 
to  be  men  of  ability  and  skilled  teachers;  many  pos- 
sess real  power,  grasp  and  insight.  The  writer  asked  an 
American  authority,  "  How  is  it  that  so  many  able  men, 
enough  to  fill  the  head  posts,  are  produced  out  of  so  small 
a  percentage  of  men  teachers  ?  "  The  answer  was  that  a 
good  many  men  will  take  up  teaching  as  a  stop-gap  for  a 
short  time ;  that  those  who  have  a  natural  gift  remain  in 
the  profession  and  rapidly  rise,  while  those  who  have  no- 


268       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

vocation  for  it  withdraw  after  a  very  short  experience. 
The  large  majority  of  women  teachers  furnish  very,  very 
few  leaders,  although  legally  a  woman  is  eligible  to  the 
post  of  principal  or  superintendent.  Kindergarten  and 
primary  work  is,  of  course,  in  their  hands,  and  there  is  very 
often  in  a  large  city  a  woman  assistant  superintendent  or 
supervisor  of  kindergarten  or  primary  education.  There 
seem  also  to  be  a  fair  number  of  women  principals  of 
grammar  schools,  that  is  schools  for  the  grades  from  eleven 
to  fourteen,  what  we  should  call  in  England  senior  mixed 
departments ; l  in  such  cases  the  staff  often  consists  of 
women. 

An  interesting  sidelight  is  thrown  on  this  predominance 
of  women  teachers  in  the  public  elementary  schools  of 
America  by  some  remarks  by  the  State  Superintendent  of 
Maine,  in  a  pamphlet  on  child  study.  He  had  conducted 
a  careful  inquiry,  and  in  conclusion  writes  as  follows : — 

No  one  can  study  these  figures  without  noticing  that  the 
girls  lead  the  boys  in  desirable  qualities  and  that  the  boys  more 
largely  rank  the  girls  in  particulars  which  reflect  discredit  upon 
school  children.  The  almost  unanimous  testimony  of  teachers 
on  these  items  makes  pertinent  the  following  queries  : — 

First :  Do  the  figures  fairly  represent  the  facts  ? 

Second :  Are  boys  less  interested  in  school  work  than  girls 
because  they  are  in  so  few  instances  taught  by  men  ? 

Third  :  Do  women  judge  boys  fairly  ? 

Fourth :  Do  boys  develop  more  slowly  than  girls  and  are 
they  less  willing  to  work? 

Fifth :  Are  our  courses  of  study  better  adapted  to  the  needs 
of  girls  than  to  the  necessities  of  boys  ? 

Sixth  :  Are  girls  more  industrious  than  boys  because  they  are 
told  so  frequently  they  are  not  as  brainy  as  boys  ? 

1  One  of  the  greatest  objections  to  women  as  the  sole  teachers  of  youth 
in  our  public  schools  is  the  fact  that  they  care  so  little  for  public  affairs 
^McMurry,  Teachers1  College  Record). 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     269 

Seventh :  Have  athletics  had  anything  to  do  with  lessening 
the  interest  of  boys  in  school  work  ? 

Eighth :  Is  the  instruction  more  attractive  to  girls  than  to 
boys? 

Ninth :  Should  not  parents,  school  officials  and  teachers 
make  a  careful  study  of  these  figures  for  the  purpose  of  deter- 
mining what  changes  are  needed  in  school  administration, 
teaching  force,  subjects  of  study  and  methods  of  instruction  ? 

In  the  high  school,  that  is  in  secondary  education,  there 
is  much  more  equality  of  the  sexes  on  the  staff ;  the  head 
is,  of  course,  almost  always  a  man,  in  the  case  of  great  city 
schools  universally  so.  The  staff  of  such  schools  seems 
often  to  be  about  equally  divided.  The  importance  of 
girls  being  taught  by  men  teachers  is  deeply  felt  in  Amer- 
ica ;  they  consider  it  a  great  fault  in  our  English  girls'  high 
schools  if  the  staff  is  exclusively  feminine,  and  this  for  two 
reasons.  First,  they  consider  that  a  man  exercises  an  in- 
tellectual influence  different  from  that  of  a  woman,  an  in- 
fluence extremely  important  to  the  girls'  intellectual 
development.  This  is  probably  quite  true,  and  may  be 
illustrated  by  the  cases  in  which  distinguished  English- 
women have  been  taught  as  girls  by  their  fathers.  If  the 
girls'  schools  in  England  had  more  money  they  would  do 
well  to  have  men  teachers  on  their  staffs,  as  they  did  in 
the  early  days,  and  as  some  few  still  do.  The  other  reason 
seems  less  forcible ;  it  is  that  the  school  should  furnish  to  a 
girl  some  notion  of  what  a  gentleman  really  is,  just  as  the 
women  teachers  should  so  far  as  possible  be  models  for 
her  own  conduct  and  character.  Americans  say  that  a 
girl's  standard  of  true  manhood  ought  to  be  influenced  by 
what  she  learns  in  school  from  men  teachers.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  give  an  opinion  on  this ;  perhaps  with  our  fixity  of 
social  classes  in  England,  we  would  say  that  a  girl's  own 
father  and  the  friends  she  meets  in  her  own  home  should 
give  her  this  standard. 


270       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

The  importance  of  the  effect  of  women  teachers  on  boys 
is  equally  emphasised  by  Americans.  They  consider  that 
if  a  boy  is  taught  in  the  high  school  by  a  woman  whose  in- 
tellectual standards  and  power  are  as  high  as  those  of  her 
men  colleagues,  he  learns  to  respect  a  woman  in  a  way  that 
an  English  boy  never  does.  Indeed  some  Americans  give 
as  the  reason  for  the  universal  respect  and  consideration 
for  women  in  America  the  fact  that  all  the  men  folk  have 
been  taught  by  women  in  their  youth.  It  would  certainly 
make  a  very  great  difference  to  the  average  boy  in  an  Eng- 
lish city  grammar  school,  not  to  say  in  one  of  our  great 
public  schools,  if  he  were  taught  history,  or  English,  or 
modern  languages,  by  some  of  our  first-rate  university 
women  teachers.  In  the  present  scarcity  of  assistant 
masters,  governing  bodies  of  boys'  schools  might  consider 
whether  they  could  not  experiment  by  the  appointment  of 
two  or  three  first-rate  women  teachers,  especially  for  the 
literary  subjects  that  women  teach  so  well. 

So  much  for  the  staff  of  a  high  school :  the  headship  ac- 
cording to  American  opinion  must,  if  the  school  is  large 
and  important,  be  held  by  a  man,  even  when  the  schools, 
like  some  of  those  in  Boston  and  New  York,  are  for  girls 
only.  It  was  perhaps  one  of  the  most  remarkable  per- 
sonal experiences  of  the  writer  to  meet  continually  these 
headmasters  at  the  head  of  girls'  schools,  both  public  and 
private,  and  to  feel  that  this  was  natural  and  proper  to 
Americans.  The  reasons  we  shall  endeavour  to  discuss 
later.  In  secondary  education  as  well  as  elementary,  men 
of  ability  and  natural  gifts  come  to  the  front  by  a  kind  of 
survival  of  the  fittest.  The  writer  could  not  but  notice, 
however,  the  difference  in  the  attitude  of  women  teachers, 
due  to  the  fact  that  they  could  not  look  forward  to  be- 
coming heads  of  schools  later,  as  can  the  more  able  mem- 
bers of  the  staff  of  a  girls'  school  in  England.  With  us 
this  hope  for  promotion  stimulates  and  develops  the  senior 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     271 

mistresses  of  our  schools,  and  makes  them  do  work  of  a 
finer  type  as  assistants.  In  America  the  only  hope  for  pro- 
motion of  a  woman  teacher  in  a  high  school  is  to  become 
a  lecturer  in  one  of  the  women's  colleges. 

The  normal  colleges  for  training  girls  who  will  become 
teachers  in  the  public  elementary  schools  also  have  men 
principals,  often  very  able  men.  Indeed  women  do  not 
.seem  to  take  as  large  a  part  in  the  training  of  teachers  in 
America,  though  the  movement  is  much  wider  and  older 
there,  as  they  do  already  with  us.  We  may  refer  in  illus- 
tration to  the  number  of  women  engaged  in  the  education 
departments  of  our  universities,  and  to  the  new  rule  of  the 
Board  of  Education  that  the  heads  of  elementary  training 
colleges  for  young  women  must  in  all  new  appointments  be 
women  themselves. 

We  now  come  to  colleges ;  here  the  position  of  women 
(whether  as  students  or  instructors)  is  better  than  it  is  in 
England,  owing  to  the  larger  numbers  of  women's  colleges. 
We  have  nothing  like  Vassar,  with  its  1,000  students  and 
its  61  women  on  the  faculty,  or  Bryn  Mawr  with  nearly 
500  students  doing  work  of  a  high  grade,  many  of  them 
graduates  working  for  the  Ph.D.,  to  say  nothing  of  Smith 
with  nearly  1,500,  and  Wellesley  with  over  1,000  students, 
and  many  smaller  and  less  important  institutions  besides. 
Clearly,  even  allowing  that  the  population  of  the  United 
States  is  about  twice  that  of  England,  a  very  much  larger  j 
proportion  of  American  women  go  to  college  than  is  as/ 
yet  the  case  with  us.  These  colleges  afford  opportunities 
of  employment  to  a  large  number  of  women  professors  and 
lecturers,  many  of  them  women  of  distinction.  It  is  in- 
vidious to  particularise,  but  the  writer  may  say  that  the 
most  brilliant  mathematician  Girton  has  produced  is  on 
the  staff  at  Bryn  Mawr,  and  that  in  Vassar  women  have 
done  and  are  doing  astronomical  work  of  the  highest 
standard.  The  existence  of  these  large  opportunities  for 


272       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

remunerative  intellectual  work  is  undoubtedly  a  great 
stimulus  to  the  American  woman  of  marked  intellectual 
ability.  We  have  nothing  like  it  here ;  the  English  college 
woman  who  has  taken  a  good  honours  degree  (or  equivalent) 
can  hardly  hope  for  university  work  unless  she  is  excep- 
tionally distinguished,  or  exceptionally  fortunate.  She 
therefore  comes  into  the  schools,  which  benefit,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  by  having  plenty  of  the  best  material  out 
of  which  to  shape  the  future  heads  of  schools  or  training 
colleges. 

It  must  not  be  supposed,  however,  that  the  women's 
colleges  are  essentially  taught  by  women  ;  there  are  always 
some  men  in  the  faculty.  Bryn  Mawr  is  indeed  remark- 
able for  attracting  brilliant  young  men  to  teach  there  for 
a  few  years,  and  go  on  to  posts  of  greater  dignity. 

As  regards  supreme  control  one  may  notice  again  in 
several  important  instances  the  remarkable  American 
custom  that  a  woman's  institution  should  have  a  man 
head.  Wellesley  tradition  has  always  been  different ;  the 
founder,  Henry  Durant,  from  the  very  beginning  appointed 
a  woman  president,  and  as  far  as  possible  desired  to  have 
only  women  on  the  staff.  The  second  president  there  was 
Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  one  of  the  finest  women  American 
education  has  known.  Bryn  Mawr  at  first  had  a  man 
president,  but  now  has  a  woman.  Where  there  is  a 
women's  college  attached  as  it  were  to  a  men's  university, 
there  is  generally  a  woman  dean  at  the  head,  as  at  Barnard, 
Radcliffe  and  Chicago,  where,  as  we  have  seen,  the  women 
are  to  a  certain  extent  separated.  Such  women  correspond 
roughly  with  the  mistress  or  principal  of  an  Oxford  or 
Cambridge  college  for  women.  At  Barnard,  however,  a 
man  head  has  been  talked  of,  and  men  have  held  posts  as 
acting  deans  during  an  interregnum.  One  cannot  imagine 
this  happening  at  Bedford  College,  London,  or  at  the 
Royal  Holloway  College;  their  position  in  regard  to 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     273 

London  University  is  analogous  to  that  of  Barnard  to 
Columbia.  Even  the  new  Simmons  College  in  Boston, 
founded  within  the  last  ten  years,  has  a  man  president 
with  a  woman  dean  acting  under  him. 

In  co-educational  universities  like  Wisconsin,  which  are 
paralleled  by  the  new  English  universities,  there  does  not 
appear  to  be  as  good  a  chance  for  women  to  go  on  the 
faculties  as  there  is  already  in  England.  We  cannot 
afford  to  boast,  for  there  is  as  yet  no  woman  professor, 
though  there  have  already  been  women,  like  the  late  Mary 
Bateson,  fitted  for  the  highest  work.  The  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology  has  a  woman  professor  teaching 
classes  almost  entirely  of  men.  But  in  the  University  ot 
London,  in  the  various  institutions  and  colleges  for  higher 
education  federated  to  it,  women  are  found  among  the 
recognised  teachers  to  a  degree  which  cannot  be  paralleled 
in  any  American  co-educational  university.  In  the  Uni- 
versity of  Manchester,  too,  women  lecturers  are  appointed 
regularly  when  women  of  sufficient  distinction  can  be 
found ;  so  far  as  we  know  there  seems  in  England  no 
difficulty  in  even  younger  women  lecturing  to  and  con- 
trolling undergraduates.  Apparently  in  America  the  op- 
portunities for  women  to  become  members  of  faculties  in 
large  co-educational  universities  are  not  quite  so  good  as 
they  were,  and  the  brilliant  college  woman,  we  are  informed, 
would  do  better  to  limit  herself  to  seeking  work  in  a 
separate  women's  college.  There  is,  however,  one  de- 
partment to  which  we  have  nothing  analogous  in  England 
— the  woman  head  of  a  women's  gymnasium  in  a  mixed 
university  like  Wisconsin.  She  often  has  the  medical 
qualification,  and  has  full  charge  of  the  health  of  the 
women  undergraduates ;  she  may  be  in  a  marked  sense 
their  guide,  philosopher,  and  friend,  and  to  the  work  of 
such  women  is  no  doubt  due  the  fact  that  the  health  and 
appearance  of  American  girls  improve  during  their  college 

18 


274       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

life.  There  could  be  no  better  use  for  the  gifts  of  some 
wealthy  Englishwoman  than  to  establish  in  our  new  uni- 
versities a  separate  gymnasium  for  the  women  students, 
with  a  qualified  woman  in  charge,  a  lady,  and  a  graduate 
who  would  take  her  place  beside  the  women  tutors  and 
lecturers  and  have  the  same  standing.  The  work  of  the 
medical  women  on  the  staff  at  Vassar  is  peculiarly  valuable. 
They  give  lectures  on  personal  hygiene  to  every  student, 
and  do  much  to  prepare  women  for  their  special  duties  in 
the  home. 

To  conclude  this  review  of  the  position  of  women  in 
each  type  of  the  educational  work  of  America,  we  must 
touch  upon  administration  whether  public  or  private. 
Here  the  position  of  women  is  conspicuously  inferior  to 
what  it  is  in  England ;  they  are  eligible  for  School 
Boards,  but  comparatively  few  seem  to  be  elected  or 
nominated.  There  is  no  law,  as  in  England,  compelling  the 
appointment  of  at  least  two  women  on  every  Education 
Committee.  The  Board  of  Regents  of  a  State  university 
contains  a  woman  or  two  here  and  there ;  the  analogous 
bodies,  courts,  councils  or  senates,  of  the  newer  English 
universities,  show  that  women  take  a  much  more  prominent 
part  in  government,  though,  of  course,  as  might  be  expected, 
they  are  in  the  minority.  Private  corporations  owning 
and  controlling  schools,  which  correspond  to  our  governing 
bodies,  seem  to  contain  a  larger  number  of  women  than  do 
the  Public  School  Boards,  but  in  the  few  cases  of  girls' 
institutions  studied,  it  did  not  appear  that  the  women 
members  were  as  important  relatively  as  the  women 
members  on  a  governing  body  in  England.  Voluntary 
committees  of  teachers'  associations  do  not  seem  to  include 
women  in  the  same  way  as  they  would  in  England.  A 
committee  of  this  kind  has  just  reported  on  the  professional 
preparation  of  high  school  teachers  to  the  National  Educa- 
tion Association  which  nominated  it ;  there  are  seventeen 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     275 

members,  professors  of  education,  principals  of  high  schools 
and  officials ;  not  one  is  a  woman.  Such  a  committee 
with  us  would  certainly  have  included  some  of  the  heads 
of  women's  training  colleges,  and  representatives  of  the 
Headmistresses'  and  Assistant  Mistresses'  Associations. 

The  subordinate  position  of  women  in  educational  insti- 
tutions in  America  shows  itself  more  and  more  clearly  the 
more  one  studies ;  the  higher  up  the  scale  one  goes  from  the 
kindergarten  to  the  university  the  worse  is  the  position  of 
women.  Organisation,  initiative,  administration,  govern- 
ment, are  in  the  hands  of  men.  This  was  symbolised  on 
the  occasion  of  an  assembly  in  a  most  important  and 
efficient  co-educational  school  where,  in  the  hall,  were 
seated  500  boys  and  girls  on  separate  sides,  and  on  the 
platform  four  men  in  authority,  principals  and  vice-princi- 
pals, and  not  a  single  woman  except  the  accompanist  at 
the  piano.  This  condition  of  things,  in  a  country  where 
women  occupy  a  far  better  position  generally  than  any- 
where in  the  world,  and  where  they  are  given  the  prece- 
dence in  all  kinds  of  ways,  is  very  remarkable.  We  do  not 
remember  to  have  seen  it  noticed  by  students  of  American 
education.  Americans  themselves  take  their  own  system 
as  natural  and  proper,  and  they  are  in  general  not  acquainted 
with  the  work  of  Englishwomen  in  education.  It  is  per- 
haps only  a  woman  concerned  in  administration  in  Eng- 
land who  would  feel  the  difference,  but  as  the  writer 
progressed  from  place  to  place  it  was  more  deeply  impressed 
upon  her,  especially  the  difference  in  matters  of  govern- 
ment.  It  was  discussed  with  Americans,  and  from  con- 
versation the  view  gradually  emerged  that  Americans  do  not 
consider  administration  as  the  natural  and  proper  work  for 
women.  They  feel  it  to  be  essentially  men's  work,  though 
they  admit  that  the  exceptional  woman  may  and  does  do 
it  well.  It  is  curious  to  contrast  with  this  view  expressed 
by  chivalrous  and  liberal  Americans,  the  trend  of  opinion 

18* 


276       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

of  conservative  English  town  councillors  in  approving  the 
recent  bill  for  making  women  eligible  for  this  kind  of  work. 
"  Englishwomen  had  shown  they  could  be  useful,  there 
was  more  work  to  do  on  town  councils  than  men  could  do 
properly,  and  men  would  be  very  glad  to  have  a  woman 
on  the  council  for  the  most  practical  reasons." 

What  can  be  the  causes  of  this  very  remarkable  differ- 
ence ?  The  writer  has  given  such  attention  to  the  subject 
as  was  possible,  and  has  questioned  leading  American 
women  and  even  one  or  two  American  men  on  the  matter  ; 
she  would  with  diffidence  suggest  the  following  : — 

The  first  reason  is  undoubtedly  custom  ;  institutions  have 
always  had  men  heads,  and  they  thus  command  public  con- 
fidence. It  was  said,  indeed,  that  a  man  would  be  less  likely 
to  send  his  girls  to  a  women's  college  with  a  woman  at  the 
head ;  other  things  being  equal,  he  would  feel  more  confi- 
dence if  the  supreme  control  were  in  the  hands  of  a  man. 
College  presidents  were,  of  course,  men  at  the  beginning. 
When  the  presidents  were  originally  clergy  they  were  re- 
sponsible in  a  special  way  for  the  spiritual  and  moral  de- 
velopment of  the  students,  and  it  is  only  in  this  generation 
that  laymen  are  found  in  certain  great  universities  occupying 
these  very  important  positions.  The  origin  of  the  tradi- 
tion for  women's  colleges  is  therefore  easy  to  understand. 

The  historic  evolution  of  women's  education  in  England 
has  been  quite  different ;  the  struggle  was  begun  by  women 
like  Miss  Buss  and  Miss  Clough.  Separate  girls'  schools 
and  colleges  for  women  attached  to  men's  universities  was 
the  form  the  movement  took,  and  these  women  from  the 
first  became  heads  of  the  new  institutions.  When  Miss 
Emily  Davies  had  led  the  struggle  at  Cambridge  she 
naturally  became  the  head  of  Girton  College;  the  tradition 
once  formed  was,  of  course,  continued. 

Another  reason  which  may  be  offered  for  the  American 
system  is  the  existence  of  co-education,  but  we  do  not 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     277 

think  this  enough  to  explain  this  difference.  It  explains 
why  there  are  not  250  headmistresses  of  public  secondary 
schools  in  America  as  there  are  in  England ;  it  does  not 
explain  why  so  many  men  are  found  at  the  heads  of 
separate  institutions  for  girls  in  America. 

A  third  reason  was  given  to  the  writer  by  Americans  ; 
it  is  not  one  she  would  herself  suggest,  and  she  cannot  esti- 
mate its  value.  It  is  that  women  are  not  suited  for  ad- 
ministrative work,  not  American  women  that  is ;  the 
politeness  of  the  speakers  forbade  them,  even  if  they 
thought  so,  to  suggest  that  Englishwomen  were  not  suited 
either.  Four  particulars  of  unsuitability  were  given  by 
different  witnesses.  The  first  was  health  ;  women  generally 
are  not  strong  enough  to  stand  the  strain  of  administrative 
responsibility.  Possibly  this  is  true  in  America,  where 
even  men,  under  the  conditions  of  the  country,  do  not  seem 
to  have  the  endurance  of  Englishmen.  The  second  is 
inclination ;  women  do  not  like  administrative  work.  On 
this  point,  of  course,  the  information  of  Americans  them- 
selves cannot  be  controverted,  but  it  should  be  noticed  that 
this  opinion  came  from  men,  not  from  women.  The  third 
consideration  was  that  women  had  not  the  natural  gifts 
required  for  administrators  ;  we  think  it  is  generally  agreed 
that  French  and  English  women  have  a  fair  share  of 
administrative  ability,  and  from  what  the  writer  saw  of 
women's  work  in  America,  it  would  not  appear  that  Ameri- 
can women  have  any  less  natural  power  in  this  direction. 
The  fourth  point  was  that  women  teachers  and  educators 
have  not  the  financial  and  business  training  which  would  fit 
them  to  become  heads  of  great  institutions ;  this  is  prob- 
ably quite  correct.  The  work  is  somewhat  differently 
organised  in  England,  and  we  do  not  emphasise  the  busi- 
ness side  quite  as  much  as  the  American. 

Undoubtedly  there  are  differences  in  social  life  which  do 
alter  the  conditions.  For  one  thing  there  are  not  as  many 


278       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

superfluous  women  in  the  educated  and  directing  classes 
as  there  are  in  England.  The  American  college  woman 
is  more  likely  to  marry  or  to  have  independent  means,  and 
the  life  of  society  perhaps  is  a  greater  attraction  to  her.  If 
a  woman  marries  with  us  she  is  often  able  to  go  on  with 
her  administrative  work,  as  her  household  duties  can  be 
more  easily  delegated  than  in  America.  One  cannot 
but  feel  that  the  absence  of  women  from  many  positions 
of  high  administrative  responsibility  is  due  to  the  fact 
that  for  one  reason  or  another  the  women  are  not  there 
to  fill  them.  When  a  woman  of  first-rate  ability,  with 
inclination  and  leisure,  is  ready  to  do  administrative  work, 
the  opportunities  are  given  to  her ;  this  is  clearly  shown 
in  the  life  of  Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  who  was  President 
of  Wellesley  at  twenty-six,  a  trustee  of  Wellesley  after  her 
marriage,  a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  Board  of  Educa- 
tion from  1889  to  her  death,  and  Dean  of  women  at 
Chicago  in  1892  ;  her  far-reaching  influence  cannot  be 
estimated,  even  by  the  enumeration  of  the  definite  public 
duties  she  fulfilled.  No  Englishwoman  has  done  more.1 
Social  prejudice  was  also  mentioned  as  a  reason  why 
many  American  women  of  the  highest  classes  do  not 
engage  in  administrative  work  as  they  do  in  England.  An 
American  lady,  who  was  in  a  position  to  know,  stated  that 
among  the  real  aristocracy  [which  exists  in  the  United 
States,  as  it  must  in  every  civilised  and  wealthy  country] 
"  it  was  not  the  thing "  for  women  to  come  forward  and 
do  public  work  as  they  do  in  England.  She  pointed  out 
how  women  in  the  highest  social  position  had  been  and 
were  still  associated  with  the  direction  of  women's  colleges 
at  Oxford  and  Cambridge.  The  few  American  women  of 
the  highest  class  who  are  engaged  in  educational  work  are 
considered  to  be  doing  something  quite  exceptional. 

1  See  Life  of  Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  by  G.    H.   Palmer.     Boston: 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.,  1908. 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     279 

This  valuable  opinion  suggests  what  is  probably  the 
fundamental  cause  for  the  difference  of  the  relation  of 
women  to  public  work,  educational  or  otherwise,  in  the  two 
countries.  We  in  England  have  inherited  a  tradition  from 
feudal  and  mediaeval  times  that  women  should  share  in 
administration.  The  lady  who  looked  after  the  primitive 
old  English  household,  when  her  lord  went  off  in  the 
summer  on  a  piratical  expedition,  or  accompanied  the 
king  to  war,  was,  like  the  virtuous  woman  of  the  Book  of 
Proverbs,  a  very  capable  administrator.  The  abbess  of  a 
mediaeval  convent,  the  seventeenth-century  Bess  of  Hard- 
wick,  the  wife  of  the  village  squire  at  a  later  period,  were 
from  their  position  administrators.  When  new  conditions 
arose,  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  manufacturing  house 
became  naturally  a  helper  in  the  management  of  the 
schools  established  near  the  mills  for  the  workpeople's 
children,  and  so  women  whose  families  were  enriched  by 
the  Industrial  Revolution  have  carried  out  the  principle  of 
public  work,  as  well  as  ladies  of  the  country  gentry.  The 
women  of  our  governing  classes  have  always  felt  it  their 
duty  to  help  with  what  may  be  called  the  feminine  side  of 
public  responsibility,  if  only  to  look  after  the  old  women 
and  children  in  the  cottages.  There  has,  of  course,  been 
nothing  of  this  tradition  in  America  except  in  the  old 
slaveholding  South ;  furthermore,  it  is  probably  true  that 
Puritanism  has  discouraged  and  diminished  the  share 
of  women  in  public  work ;  historically  it  will  be  found 
that  the  periods  when  Puritanism  was  strong  in  England 
were  the  times  when  her  women  did  least  outside  the 
home,  and  the  influence  of  the  Oxford  Movement  in  Eng- 
land, which  brought  back  mediaeval  ideas  of  philanthropic 
independent  work  for  women,  has  undoubtedly  done 
much  to  help  on  the  women's  cause  to-day. 

Another  side  of  this  same  difference  is  seen  in  the  rela- 
tion of  women  to  politics.  In  America  it  is  considered 


280       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

that  women  have  no  business  with  politics  at  all ;  with  us 
the  women  of  our  aristocracy  at  least  have  always  of 
necessity  been  in  politics,  and  even  the  most  frivolous  of 
them  have  known  it  to  be  their  duty  to  help  their  men 
folk  at  election  times.  We  may  indeed  take  this  question 
of  women  and  administration  up  to  the  very  highest  con- 
stitutional position,  the  headship  of  the  State.  One  was 
told  more  than  once  in  America  that  a  woman  head  for 
an  educational  institution  would  be  impossible,  since  men 
could  not  serve  under  her  nor  obey  her  instructions  without 
doing  violence  to  their  masculine  sentiment  of  honour. 
The  obvious  reply  for  an  Englishwoman  was  that  men  in 
England  obeyed  a  woman  for  more  than  sixty  years.  We 
owe  more  than  we  often  realise,  we  women,  who  have  pro- 
fited by  the  new  opportunities  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
to  the  indirect  but  all-powerful  influence  of  our  beloved 
and  venerated  Queen. 

It  may  be  perhaps  that  the  preceding  pages  have  been 
a  little  unfair  to  the  real  power  of  American  women.  In 
education,  as  in  other  spheres  of  national  life,  it  is  not 
always  those  who  appear  to  do  the  work  and  take  the 
responsibility  with  whom  real  power  rests,  We  may  be 
proudly  conscious  of  our  opportunities  of  public  work  in 
England ;  our  American  sisters  may  quietly  smile  and  be 
satisfied  with  the  all-powerful  position  they  occupy  as 
sources  of  influence.  They  can  get  what  they  want,  and 
they  do  ;  do  not  American  men  themselves  say  they  live 
under  a  gynocracy  ?  Why  should  American  ladies  seek 
to  sit  for  long  and  weary  hours  on  dull  and  quarrelsome 
committees,  to  go  through  the  dust  and  turmoil,  the  rough 
and  tumble  of  elections,  to  bear  the  burden  of  administra- 
tive responsibility  ?  We  in  England  have  to  go  through 
all  this  because  it  is  the  only  way  to  get  the  work  done, 
and  there  is  so  much  to  do,  in  education  above  all. 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     281 

American  women  seem  to  have  more  personal  individual 
influence.1 

When  they  wish  to  act  publicly  they  do  so  through 
women's  clubs  and  leagues  of  various  kinds,  which  have 
done  and  are  doing  a  great  deal  for  all  sorts  of  social  im- 
provement, health,  temperance,  charities  and  the  like. 
Here  we  may  give  a  brief  description  of  one  of  the  most 
important  of  these  societies  in  educational  work,  the 
Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae, 

The  Association  of  Collegiate  Alumnae  is  unlike  any 
society  we  have  as  yet  in  England.  As  its  name  implies 
it  consists  of  university  women ;  it  is  worked  in  local 
branches ;  the  women  in  the  district,  such  as  Washington, 
D.C.,  belonging  to  that  branch  whatever  their  college.  Its 
purpose  is  not  by  any  means  wholly  social.  Rather  is  it 
to  do  "  practical  educational  work  ".  It  was  organised  in 
January,  1882,  in  Boston,  the  seventeen  women  who  began 
the  movement  representing  eight  colleges  :  Oberlin,  Vassar, 
Michigan,  Cornell,  Wisconsin,  Boston,  Smith,  Wellesley. 
It  soon  enrolled  over  200  members,  and  has  now  over  3,000, 
and  35  branches.  But  numbers  do  not  measure  its  in- 
fluence ;  it  has  always  had  a  very  high  standard  of  entrance, 
that  is,  it  would  only  recognise  colleges  that  truly  were 
such.  Even  now,  only  twenty-four  institutions  are  recog- 
nised ;  to  the  original  eight  have  been  added  Barnard, 
Bryn  Mawr,  Chicago,  Leland  Stanford  Junior  (California), 
the  Massachusetts  Institute,  North-Western,  Radcliffe, 
Syracuse,  Wesleyan,  and  Western  Reserve,  and  the  State 

1  In  some  ways,  as  has  been  noticed  by  a  recent  keen  observer,  Miss 
Alice  Woods,  American  women  are  more  feminine  than  the  modern  type  of 
English  woman.  They  are  always,  in  all  but  the  poorest  classes,  beauti- 
fully dressed ;  they  do  not  play  games  so  much  or  tramp  about  the 
country  as  we  do  ;  very  few  care  about  the  suffrage;  and  they  certainly 
would  never  think  of  serving  on  town  councils  even  if  the  law  allowed  it. 
Miss  Woods  attributes  their  great  femininity  to  co-education  ;  possibly 
climate  and  material  prosperity  are  causes  too. 


282       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

Universities  of  California,  Illinois,  Kansas,  Minnesota, 
Missouri,  Nebraska.  One  can  easily  imagine  the  effect  of 
such  a  list,  and  the  very  careful  confidential  work  that  has 
been  done  by  the  committee  on  corporate  membership,  in 
discriminating  between  colleges.  One  of  their  rules  is  "  that 
in  co-educational  institutions  (i)  there  shall  be  a  dean  or 
adviser  of  women,  above  the  rank  of  instructor,  giving  in- 
struction and  counted  a  regular  member  of  the  faculty ;  (2) 
there  shall  be  special  provision  through  halls  of  residence 
or  in  other  buildings  for  the  social  life  of  the  women 
students,  and  that  no  institution  shall  be  considered  for 
membership  which  does  not  fulfil  these  conditions  ". 

The  A.C.A.  (as  it  is  familiarly  called)  has  done  much 
general  educational  and  philanthropic  work  during  its 
twenty-five  years  of  life ;  the  branches  specially  concern 
themselves  with  what  may  be  needed  in  their  own  district, 
such  as  enforcement  of  public  health  regulations,  food 
supplies,  care  of  children,  provision  of  open  spaces,  etc. 
Almost  the  first  subject  taken  up  by  the  general  body 
was  "  the  study  of  sanitary  science  in  its  direct  relation  to 
the  home".  From  this,  as  is  stated  in  Chapter  VI.,  the 
movement  for  home  economics  has  arisen.  A  work  which 
English  university  women  might  well  take  up  is  the  es- 
tablishment (begun  in  1889)  of  fellowships  for  women  for 
advanced  study — European  fellowships.  In  the  Twenty- 
fifth  Annual  Report  is  a  most  interesting  account  of  the 
work  of  the  ladies  who  have  held  these.1  A  special  fellow- 
ship in  memory  of  Alice  Freeman  Palmer,  one  of  the 
founders,  is  now  added  to  the  original  set.  The  A.C.A. 
at  present  is  attacking  the  problem  of  opportunities  for 

1 "  Your  fellows  have  trod  the  path  of  the  pioneer :  the  first  woman 
admitted  to  the  laboratory  of  the  U.S.  Fish  Commission ;  the  first  woman 
to  receive  the  Ph.D.  degree  from  Yale  University ;  the  first  woman  ad- 
mitted to  Gottingen  University  ;  the  first  woman  permitted  to  work  in  the 
biological  laboratory  at  Strasburg  University." 


The  Place  of  Women  in  American  Education     283 

women  on  the  faculties  of  co-educational  universities,  and 
of  a  living  wage  for  college  women.1 

The  addresses  and  papers  read  at  the  Quarter-Cen- 
tennial Meeting  in  Boston  last  November  by  many  of  the 
most  prominent  American  authorities  in  women's  educa- 
tion give  a  most  valuable  summary 2  of  the  condition  of  this 
to-day,  and  of  the  various  principles  and  opinions  on  which 
leaders  are  ^acting.  Some  hold  the  conservative  position 
that  the  higher  education  of  women  should  be  what  it  has 
been  for  twenty-five  years  :  general  and  liberal,  academic, 
scholarly,  modelled  on  the  traditional  course  for  men. 
Others,  like  Mr.  James  P.  Munroe  and  President  Eliot,  are 
reformers,  and  wish  to  see  something  new,  better  fitted  to 
women  as  such,  "  which  shall  face  the  true  needs  of  social 
development". 

The  via  media  is  perhaps  best  expressed  in  the  words  of 
welcome  on  this  occasion  from  the  President  of  Wellesley 
College,  Miss  Caroline  Hazard,  who  may  stand  as  repre- 
senting the  type  of  American  woman  fitted  for  high 
administrative  responsibility : — 

It  is  learning  which  must  be  applied  to  life,  to  make  the  best 
of  the  life  which  is  before  us  and  around  us,  which  we  must 
seek  with  all  our  hearts.  We  must  realise  what  an  enormous 
power  the  power  of  womankind  is  in  the  world.  In  America 
perhaps  it  is  a  greater  power  than  in  any  other  country,  and 
we  must  use  the  power  wisely  and  well.  This  is  the  great  aim 
which  this  Association  has  before  it — to  show  women  who 
have  undergone  long  years  of  discipline  how  they  can  best 
bring  their  culture  to  the  service  of  the  community. 

1  In  Manchester  a  Federation  of  University  Women  has  recently  been 
founded ;  if  it  becomes  national,  not  local,  it  will  correspond  to  the  A.  C.  A. 

8  Magazine  of  the  A.C.A.,  February,  1908.  Secretary-Treasurer,  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Lawrence  Clark,  Williamstown,  Mass. 


CONCLUSION. 

The  first  purpose  of  a  nation  ought  to  be  to  concentrate  its  energies  on 
its  moral  and  intellectual  development. — HALDANE. 

WE  are  all  aware  to-day  that  England  at  present  is  in  a 
mood  of  self-criticism.  The  Boer  War,  the  increasing 
commercial  competition  of  Germany  and  America,  the 
rise  of  Japan,  the  problems  of  the  Empire,  and  the  social 
difficulties  of  the  nation,  have  broken  down  our  insular 
satisfaction,  have  made  us  consider  how  we  can  best  amend 
our  ways.  America,  too,  is  in  a  mood  of  self-criticism. 
For  almost  the  first  time  in  her  history  she  has  begun  to 
wonder  whether  all  will  be  well  with  her  ;  even  her  brave 
and  happy  optimism  is  shaken  by  winds  blowing  from 
Pacific  Islands,  East  Side  tenement  houses,  and  Standard 
Oil  sheds.  Some  of  the  causes  that  have  affected  us 
have  affected  her,  but  there  are  others  peculiar  to  herself. 
In  the  twentieth  century  she  has  finished  the  great 
work  of  entering  into  possession  of  new  lands,  which  has 
occupied  her  ever  since  Daniel  Boone  crossed  the  Alle- 
ghanies,  just  after  the  Revolutionary  War.  There  is  no 
more  good  land  free  to  be  taken  up  by  those  who  find  no 
room  in  ordinary  employment ;  thus  social  pressure  is  be- 
coming more  intense,  and  economic  problems  more  press- 
ing. The  difficulties  resulting  from  the  Trusts  are  also 
generally  known ;  through  their  influence  the  average 
American  is  beginning  to  feel  his  possibilities  of  becoming 
rich  considerably  lessened.  Most  important  of  all,  perhaps, 
is  the  fact  that  since  the  war  with  Spain  America  has  be- 
come a  world  power ;  she  is  no  longer  isolated,  and  she 

284 


Conclusion  285 

has  realised  that  there  are  other  great  countries  as  well  as 
herself.     Americans  are  even  questioning  whether  their 
education  system  is  as  perfect  as  they  had  thought ;  they  are 
beginning  to  feel  it  inadequate  to  modern  conditions,  and  \ 
to  seek  how  it  may  be  improved. 

Probably  there  is  a  deeper  cause  than  any  of  these 
reasons  for  this  self-criticism,  particularly  for  this  dissatis- 
faction with  the  current  education  system  felt  both  in 
England  and  America.  Is  it  not  that  modern  conditions 
are  placing  a  very  great  strain  on  human  beings  ?  a  strain 
greater  than  can  be  borne  by  the  normal  individual  who 
has  been  sufficient  for  the  demands  of  earlier  days? 
Mechanical  inventions,  the  improvements  in  transport,  the 
shortening  of  distances,  the  bringing  of  all  the  world  as  it 
were  close  together,  the  immense  developments  of  science, 
the  breaking  down  of  old  sanctions,  the  general  penetration 
among  the  masses  of  new  philosophical  ideas,  all  this  is 
making  life  very  much  more  difficult,  is  requiring  a  higher 
type  of  human  being  than  was  produced  on  the  average 
up  to  the  nineteenth  century.  We  have  not  yet  evolved 
the  type  of  man  and  woman  suited  to  these  new  condi- 
tions, which  produce  stresses  in  the  social  fabric  never 
before  known.  We  feel  this,  and  we  turn  to  education  to 
do  the  work  for  us,  to  fit  the  new  generation  for  the  new 
conditions.  To  do  this  requires  a  new  education;  but 
we  cannot  in  it  be  independent  of  the  past.  The  adults 
of  to-day  must  provide  and  shape  the  education  that 
makes  the  adults  of  to-morrow  ;  the  children  themselves 
are  what  their  inheritance  has  made  them.  It  is  highly 
probable  therefore  that  we  cannot  in  one  generation  pro- 
duce the  new  type  of  human  being  that  the  conditions  of 
the  twentieth  century  demand  ;  all  we  can  do  is  to  modify 
our  system,  preserving  in  it  all  that  is  best  from  the  past, 
and  taking  up  from  the  reform  movements  the  best  they 
also  have  to  give.  The  stresses  may  be  too  great  for 


286       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

certain  portions  of  the  social  organism ;  already  indeed, 
we  see  the  old  structure  of  family  life  giving  way,  we  see 
English  social  classes  deforming  and  colliding  and  upheav- 
ing, American  traditions  snapping  and  parting ;  we  hear 
the  fabric  of  society  groaning  like  a  great  ship  in  a  storm 
at  sea.  Education  may  be  able  to  strengthen  and  prepare 
the  coming  generation  to  hold  out,  to  adapt  itself,  to  cast 
off  the  effete,  and  assimilate  the  new  material,  as  a  living 
organism  does,  and  not  to  break  under  strain  like  an 
engine-shaft  or  a  bridge.  What  we  have  to  do  in  Eng- 
land, as  we  reform  our  education,  is  not  only  to  slough  off 
the  worn-out  skins  that  served  a  smaller  creature,  and 
take  up  from  without  new  ideas  and  new  methods ;  we 
must  learn  to  know  and  keep  the  good  we  have,  the  good 
that  we  take  for  granted  till  we  see  what  a  difference  its 
absence  makes.  There  are  precious  things  in  our  educa- 
tion whose  value  we  do  not  fully  realise  till  we  miss  them 
elsewhere ;  just  as  we  thus  learn  to  value  the  green  fields  of 
our  misty  English  winter,  and  the  uprightness  and  honour 
of  the  governance  of  England. 

It  is  not  easy  to  dogmatise  positively  about  American 
education ;  the  more  one  studies  the  less  one  seems  to 
know.  But  even  a  superficial  study  of  it  helps  one  to 
understand  home  better,  to  see  what  is  best  in  English 
education,  what  must  at  all  costs  be  preserved. 

Chief  of  these  good  things  is  that  simple  religious  educa- 
tion which  is  given  in  all  types  of  English  public  schools, 
in  one  form  or  another,  which  satisfies  a  deep  instinct  of 
the  nation,  and  to  which  so  far  we  have  held  firm,  in  spite 
of  the  difficulties  and  anomalies  it  has  entailed  in  a  free 
and  heterogeneous  modern  community. 

America,  faced  with  our  difficulties,  sought,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  easy  way  out,  the  secular  solution  which  some 
parties  among  us  advocate  here.  To-day  many  of  her  wisest 
educators  would  give  much  to  go  back  and  stand  where  we 


Conclusion  287 

are.  It  is  impossible  now.  Statute  law  in  some  States 
forbids  in  State  schools  even  the  study  of  the  Bible.  In  1 890 
the  Supreme  Court  of  Wisconsin  decided  that  even  the  read- 
ing from  the  Bible  in  the  public  schools,  unaccompanied  by 
any  comment  on  the  part  of  the  teacher,  is  "  instruction," 
"  sectarian  instruction,"  and  consequently  falls  within  the 
prohibition  of  the  Constitution  and  the  statutes  of  Wis- 
consin. This  decision  has  had  a  far-reaching  influence. 
The  view  of  the  Court  is  undoubtedly  that  held  by  the 
large  majority  of  American  citizens. 

Even  those  Americans  who  feel  most  deeply  the  danger 
to  the  State  of  allowing  the  youth  of  the  people  to  grow 
up  without  any  religious  education,  acknowledge  that  now 
the  public  schools  cannot  be  altered.  "  In  this  country  the 
State  school  does  not  and  cannot  include  religious  training 
in  its  programme."  They  know  and  they  confess,  at  the 
same  time,  that  neither  the  family,  the  Churches  nor  the 
Sunday-school  are,  under  modern  conditions,  sufficient  for 
the  work.  The  position  seems  a  hopeless  one.  It  cannot 
be  said  as  yet  that  there  is  any  strong  public  opinion  on 
the  matter,  though  a  Religious  Education  Association  has 
been  founded.  But  the  leaders  and  captains,  whose  duty 
is  to  look  out  for  dangers,  are  anxious  about  the  future. 
Some,  like  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  have  given  public  ex- 
pression to  their  anxiety;  others  will  speak  strongly 
enough  in  private  conversation,  but  as  yet  have  not  come 
out  against  the  prevalent  view  (a  very  difficult  thing  to  do 
in  America).  Whitelaw  Reid  expresses  this  in  the  Educa- 
tional Review  for  September,  1903,  speaking  of  the  ordi- 
nary citizen.  "  He  may  outwardly  deny  the  decay  of  faith, 
but  he  inwardly  feels  it."  The  article  speaks  of  the 
<(  loosening  and  drifting"  of  the  modern  youth,  his  opinion, 
"  what  does  it  matter  anyway,"  and  the  absence  of  moral 
stability  and  solidity  that  this  means.  Others,  while  ad- 
mitting the  force  of  such  arguments  as  those  of  the  Pre- 


288       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

sident  of  Columbia,  consider  that  all  will  be  well,  that  the 
Churches  and  the  Sunday-schools  will  be  adequate,  and 
that  in  an  informal  quiet  way  there  is  a  good  deal  of  the 
religious  spirit  even  in  the  public  schools,  through  the  in- 
direct influence  of  spiritually  minded  teachers.  Commis- 
sioner Elmer  E.  Brown  represents  this  view  in  his  book 
on  the  Making  of  our  Middle  Schools  (p.  427)  : — 

It  is  well  that  free  play  is  allowed  under  our  system  for  the 
satisfaction  of  a  wide  range  of  tastes  and  convictions  in  this 
matter.  A  governmental  monopoly  is  not  desirable  in  any 
stage  of  our  educational  system  ;  perhaps  least  of  all  at  the 
secondary  stage.  The  public  schools  must  be  non-sectarian  for 
generations  to  come — probably  as  long  as  religious  denomina- 
tions shall  exist.  And  we  make  no  mistake  when  we  regard 
such  schools  as  constituting  one  of  the  crowning  glories  of  our 
national  life,  and  a  strong  support  of  much  that  is  best  in  our 
American  civilisation.  But  private  land  denominational  schools 
should  be  welcomed  too,  and  recognised  as  having  a  work  of 
their  own  to  do. 

The  view  of  the  teacher  as  such  is  expressed  by  the  late 
Wilbur  S.  Jackman.  Writing  in  the  Elementary  School 
Teacher,  April,  1906,  he  advocates  emphatically  for  school 
children  lessons  on  the  Life  and  Character  of  Christ.  The 
demand  for  religious  education  in  the  schools  has  received 
impetus  from  philosophy,  from  the  study  of  the  history  of 
mankind,  and  of  the  nature  of  the  child,  which  proves 
that  religion  is  natural  to  man,  and  is  a  necessary  part  of 
child  life,  especially  during  adolescence.  Of  this  philo- 
sophic side  Nicholas  Murray  Butler  has  become  the  ex- 
ponent. The  simplest  way  of  religious  education  for 
English-speaking  people  is,  as  we  know,  the  study  of  the 
Bible  in  school ;  England  has  felt  this,  and  with  her 
instinctive  grasp  of  the  essential  compromise  in  a  difficult 
situation  has  maintained  it.  American  opinion  feels  deeply 
the  loss  of  this  study  in  their  schools. 


Conclusion  289 

I  contend  that  we  are  not  only  impoverishing  life  and 
literature  by  the  neglect  of  the  English  Bible,  but  that  we  have 
already  impoverished  life  and  literature. 

Knowledge  of  the  English  Bible  is  passing  out  of  the  life  of 
the  rising  generation,  and  with  this  knowledge  of  the  Bible 
there  is  fast  disappearing  any  acquaintance  with  the  religious 
element  which  has  shaped  our  civilisation  from  the  beginning.1 

The  Proceedings  of  the  Congress  of  Arts  and  Sciences 
at  the  St.  Louis  Exposition,  1904,  also  bear  on  this  ques- 
tion (see  vol.  viii.,  recently  published :  Riverside  Press, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  1907). 

No  one  can  study  this  literature,  and  talk  to  leading 
Americans  about  their  problem  of  religious  education,  with- 
out feeling  how  great  is  our  advantage  in  retaining  in  our 
ordinary  State  schools  the  religious  education  which  has 
always  formed  a  chief  part  of  our  ideal.  America  warns 
us  how  terrible  is  the  loss,  how  great  the  danger  to  the 
stability  and  moral  health  of  the  nation,  if  we  abandon 
this  essential  element  in  the  life  and  growth  of  humanity 
and  of  the  individual. 

Another  great  merit  of  our  system  so  far  has  been  its 
freedom  and  variety :  we  have  sacrificed  much  in  uni- 
formity and  simplicity  of  organisation,  in  ease  and  perfec- 
tion of  working  to  this  end.  Now  we  are  at  last  making, 
later  than  any  other  civilised  nation,  a  complete  public 
education  system.  According  to  law  and  to  our  im- 
memorial custom  we  are  not  clearing  the  ground  of  exist- 
ing institutions,  but  are  rather  endeavouring  to  incorporate 
them  into  the  system,  which  must  be  sufficiently  flexible 
to  admit  of  a  great  variety  of  public  schools.  We  have 
preserved  the  denominational,  non-provided  public  elemen- 
tary school  as  part  of  the  system,  and  somehow  or  other 
we  shall  probably  continue  to  do  so.  We  are  assisting 

1 N.  M.  Butler,  National  Education  Association,  1902. 
19 


290       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

with  public  money  and  helpful  public  control,  helpful 
because  partial,  various  types  of  public  secondary  schools. 
The  Board  of  Education  itself  has  set  a  fine  example  in 
its  newer  codes  and  regulations,  and  carries  out  these  re- 
gulations in  a  broad  and  liberal  spirit.  All  this  is  what  we 
need :  no  other  way  will  meet  our  variety  of  social  con- 
ditions, and  our  instinct  for  freedom.  But  if  we  needed  a 
v  warning,  we  should  find  one  strong  and  impressive  enough 
in  the  rigidity  and  uniformity  of  the  American  public 
school  system  and  the  consequent  faults  in  their  public 
schools.  Such  are  the  attempt  to  standardise  individuals 
as  if  they  were  pieces  of  a  watch  or  a  locomotive,  and  the 
despotism  of  the  official,  so  that  the  teacher  has  no  freedom 
of  initiative,  and  the  best  men  tend  to  go  out  of  teaching : l 
these  faults  are  not  unknown  here,  but  our  variety  of 
schools  so  far  has  made  a  way  of  escape.  Much  of  the 
present  agitation  in  America  for  reform  in  the  public 

1  In  short,  there  is  a  tendency  in  certain  quarters  to  insist  that  the 
teachers  of  the  country  shall  have  nothing  to  say  or  do  about  the  organisa- 
tion of  our  educational  system.  The  advocates  of  this  policy  insist  that 
"it  is  the  business  of  the  teacher  to  teach";  such  a  statement  is  mere 
play  upon  words  and  ignores  the  fact  that  teaching  cannot  be  isolated  from 
administration,  and  the  tendency  is  to  deify  the  machinery  of  organisation 
and  to  forget  the  human  element,  to  organise  and  run  a  complex  system 
beautiful  in  its  completeness,  smooth  in  its  workings,  but  smooth  because 
it  is  impelled  by  a  force  from  outside  that  crushes  and  overthrows  internal, 
spontaneous  influences  which,  although  they  may  not  work  so  smoothly, 
would  give  a  more  human,  beautiful  and  lifelike  movement  to  the  system. 
Put  in  plain  English,  the  tendency  of  this  view  is  to  relegate  the  teacher 
to  a  position  of  subordinate  importance  in  the  educational  system  ;  and  it 
raises  the  question :  Which  is  the  most  important  thing  in  education — ad- 
ministration or  teaching  ?  Are  the  teachers  of  the  country  or  a  community, 
taken  as  a  whole,  incapable  of  giving  good  advice  regarding  educational 
policy  ?  Should  they  be  cut  off  altogether  in  the  matter  of  giving  advice 
from  access  to  Boards  of  Directors,  Boards  of  Trustees  and  superintendents, 
and  the  whole  determination  of  the  educational  policy  in  a  community 
be  left  to  a  single  officer,  like  a  superintendent  or  a  president  or  a  small 
board  ?  Are  the  teachers  of  the  country  worthy  of  confidence  ?  (The 
Elementary  School  Teacher.  University  of  Chicago  Press,  April,  1906). 


Conclusion  291 

schools  system  (see  Chapter  VIII.)  is  due  to  its  excessive 
uniformity,  to  having  one  type  only  of  public  elementary 
school.  They  need,  and  so  do  we,  half  a  dozen  types,  for 
the  needs  of  different  types  of  the  population.  The 
tyranny  of  the  official,  the  superintendent  with  them,  is 
due  to  two  causes,  neither  of  which  obtains  here :  the  cor- 
rupt state  of  municipal  politics,  and  their  general  custom 
of  having  an  autocratic  President  in  business  and  other 
concerns,  railways,  universities,  joint-stock  companies.  It 
has  meant,  with  a  first-rate  superintendent  who  is  really 
an  educator,  progress  and  efficiency.  But  we  can  secure 
these  advantages  in  other  ways.  What  we  want  is  to 
strengthen  or  create  committees  of  managers  for  each 
public  elementary  school,  bringing  in  the  parents  to  help  ; 
we  must  not  standardise  all  the  schools  over  a  large  area. 
Education  is  not  to  be  run  like  a  factory :  it  deals  with 
living  things,  ,not  raw  material.  Let  us  take  warning 
here  from  America's  error. 

A  third  merit  of  our  system  we  indeed  do  not  realise  - 
till  we  go  out  of  England,  and  study  American  education 
carefully :  the  better  position  our  women  hold  in  adminis- 
tration, whether  as  professional  heads  of  institutions,  or  as 
unpaid  workers  on  boards,  committees,  and  councils.  This 
has  been  discussed  in  Chapter  IX.  It  has  not  been 
noticed  hitherto  in  any  books  on  American  education 
known  to  the  writer,  but  it  has  been  observed  by  other 
women  visitors  familiar  with  the  position  in  England. 
There  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  position  in  America  is 
worse  than  it  was,  just  as  the  suffrage  movement  there  is; 
much  less  powerful.  Will  there  be  retrogression  here  ?  So 
far  there  are  no  signs  of  such  a  change ;  if  people  do 
their  work  well,  English  opinion  supports  them,  and  it  is 
generally  recognised  that  women  in  England  have  been 
useful  as  administrators.  It  rests  with  women  themselves 
to  go  on  proving  that  they  can  do  the  work,  by  steady, 

19* 


292       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

quiet,  undemonstrative  service  on  local  councils  and  com- 
mittees of  all  kinds. 

So  much  for  warnings  we  may  receive  from  the  present 
condition  of  education  in  America.  What  is  there  posi- 
tive that  we  may  learn?  Much  indeed,  which  may  be 
considered  under  two  heads  :  first,  certain  definite  ways  of 
action,  and  second,  certain  excellencies  of  spirit,  which  are 
not  by  any  means  easy  to  borrow. 

An  American  authority  gives,  as  one  reason  for  their 
commercial  success,  their  excellent  business  organisation, 
including  the  various  labour-saving  devices  which  their 
inventive  genius  has  developed.  The  same  gifts  have 
been  applied  in  education,  and  there  are  many  practical 
devices  which  we  might  well  borrow  from  them.  The 
smooth-surfaced  school  chalk  has  been  generally  adopted 
in  England,  like  the  typewriter  and  the  fountain-pen.  It 
might  be  well  to  enumerate  some  other  useful  American 
devices  for  school  work.  One  has  been  already  mentioned, 
the  employment  of  secretaries,  one  at  least  to  every  prin- 
cipal of  a  high  school,  to  save  the  time  and  energy  of  the 
more  costly  worker.  Other  office  devices  might  be  imitated 
too,  especially  the  use  of  card  catalogues,  a  card  for  each 
pupil,  where  we  use  report  books  and  registers,  a  much 
more  awkward  and  clumsy  and  extravagant  method,  both 
in  time  and  space.  Some  of  the  new  American  school 
buildings,  notably  the  Boston  Girls'  Latin  School,  have  a 
telephone  system  to  every  classroom  from  the  head- 
master's room,  so  that  a  message  can  be  sent  at  once ;  this 
would  be  a  great  convenience,  though  perhaps  in  England 
hardly  worth  its  cost.  The  installation  of  a  system  of 
bells  rung  all  over  a  building  simultaneously  by  a  central 
clock  is  becoming  usual  in  England ;  but  there  are  still 
schools  that  would  save  time  and  friction  by  this  device. 

In  school  furniture  we  have  much  to  learn  from  America ; 
blackboards  round  the  classroom  for  the  use  of  the  pupils 


Conclusion  293 

are  being  fixed  in  some  of  our  newer  schools,  but  we  still 
have  nothing  like  enough  blackboard  space,  nor  do  our 
teachers,  especially  in  secondary  schools,  use  the  board 
and  make  their  pupils  use  it  as  they  should.  In  supple- 
mentary rooms  or  lecture  theatres,  where  (little  writing  is 
done  except  note-taking,  the  provision  of  desks  is  un- 
necessary, if  the  American  system  is  followed.  There  one 
finds  comfortable  chairs  with  arms,  and  a  movable  flap  to 
hold  the  note-book  fixed  to  the  right  arm ;  this  is  far 
more  convenient  and  comfortable  than  the  fixed  seats  and 
narrow  desk  in  front  found  in  an  ordinary  college  lecture 
theatre,  and  is,  we  imagine,  much  cheaper.  Rooms  for  the 
teaching  of  history,  literature  and  geography  have  fixed 
map  cases  high  up  on  the  wall  above  the  teacher's  desk  ; 
the  teacher  pulls  a  string,  and  down  comes  the  map  re- 
quired for  reference,  like  a  spring  blind.  When  done 
with,  the  string  is  again  pulled  and  the  map  goes  back  to 
its  place.  In  the  best  schools  the  fittings  of  the  dressing- 
rooms  and  their  adjuncts  are  much  better  than  with  us ; 
marble  and  enamelled  slate  are  used  for  partitions,  ap- 
paratus is  nickel-plated,  and  excellent  shower-baths  are 
often  found  adjoining  gymnasia.  The  health  building  of 
the  Horace  Mann  School  and  the  new  Southern  Manual 
Training  High  School  for  Boys  in  Philadelphia  are  most 
beautifully  fitted  on  the  sanitary  side.  The  use  of  common 
cups  at  school  drinking  fountains  is  disapproved ;  in  the 
new  schools  there  are  real  ever-flowing  fountains  on  each 
corridor.  The  water  bubbles  up  like  a  natural  spring,  and 
the  child  stoops  and  drinks  from  it. 

They  have  taken  more  trouble  altogether  over  health 
questions  in  education  than  we  have,  till  the  last  year  or 
two.  Now  we  are  doing  as  much  for  the  masses  as  they — 
probably  more,  indeed,  since  our  Board  of  Education 
regulations  secure  a  uniform  standard  of  sanitation  and 
medical  inspection  everywhere,  and  our  Local  Government 


294       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

Board  acts  in  the  same  direction.  But  in  the  colleges  for 
women  they  do  much  more  than  we  yet  have  accomplished. 
We  ought  to  copy  and  adapt  their  gymnasium  system, 
especially  in  our  new  universities.  Each  of  these  ought 
to  have  as  in  America  a  properly  equipped  women's  gym- 
nasium under  the  charge  of  a  woman  expert,  who  should 
examine  and  advise  the  women  students  on  personal 
hygiene,  and  prescribe  exercises  for  them.  This  system 
is  required  in  America  by  the  Association  of  Collegiate 
Alumnae  as  a  condition  for  recognition  by  it  of  the  women 
graduates  of  a  college  or  university.  What  would  they 
think  of  some  of  our  urban  universities  where  the  only  pro- 
vision consists  of  certain  gymnasium  classes  conducted  by 
a  drill-sergeant,  and  where  the  only  woman  who  can 
notice  a  girl's  health  is  the  tutor  (or  dean)  who  has  all  the 
other  responsibilities  of  supervision  ?  The  system  of  the 
University  of  Wisconsin  might  be  a  model  for  our  co- 
educational universities ;  the  system  at  Vassar,  where 
lectures  given  by  a  medical  woman  on  the  hygiene  of  a 
woman's  life  are  compulsory,  might  well  be  imitated  by 
our  separate  women's  colleges. 

The  result  of  all  this  care  is  that  the  health  of  American 
women  students  undoubtedly  improves  at  college.  We 
have  done  nothing,  perhaps  because  our  girls  are  thought 
strong  enough  to  go  along  on  their  own  responsibility. 

School  libraries  are  not  more  beautiful  than  ours,  often 
not  as  beautiful  as  some  in  our  better  schools.  But  the 
Americans  understand  how  to  make  a  library  useful  far 
better  than  we  do ;  they  train  their  librarians  carefully ;  a 
good  college  library  will  have  five  trained  women  on  the 
library  staff,  a  good  school  will,  if  possible,  have  one 
woman  who  does  nothing  else.  The  superiority  in  ways 
of  using  a  library  extends,  we  believe,  everywhere ;  the 
American  idea  is  that  the  books  shall  be  used,  and  that 
every  facility  shall  be  given  to  induce  readers  to  avail 


Conclusion  295 

themselves  of  the   opportunities,  even  if  books  are  oc- 
casionally lost  or  injured. 

The  superiority  of  their  school  text-books  is  due  to  finan- 
cial causes;  the  average  English  parent  could  not,  and  f 
would  not,  pay  for  the  elaborate,  illustrated,  and  costly  text- 
books American  schools  use ;  there  these  are  often  fur- 
nished free  to  pupils,  but  when  this  is  not  the  rule,  the 
parent,  if  there  is  no  fee  to  pay,  grudges  less  the  expense  of 
books.  Thoughtful  Americans  seem  to  consider  that  the 
child  ought  to  have  his  or  her  own  text-books,  however,  as 
a  nucleus  of  a  useful  working  library.  Indeed  the  system 
when  text-books  belong  to  the  school  leads  to  all  sorts 
of  difficulties,  and  is  certainly  not  worthy  of  our  imita- 
tion. 

The  American  inventive  genius,  which  has  given  us  use- 
ful school  furniture  and  office  machinery,  has  evolved  a 
system  of  substitutes  for  examination— the  accrediting  sys- 
tem— which  we  might  do  well  to  follow  in  England.  Just 
as  our  peculiar  examination  system,  not  known  in  any 
other  country,  tends  to  destroy  much  that  is  best  in  our 
education,  so  the  one  piece  of  school  external  organisation 
which  we  could  with  advantage  borrow  from  America  is 
their  Western  method  of  escape  from  the  examination  in- 
cubus. As  we  have  endeavoured  to  show  in  Chapter  III., 
it  would  work  better  with  us  than  it  does  with  them,  and 
it  would  harmonise  with  our  instinctive  English  feeling 
that  the  secondary  school  should  look  to  the  university. 
It  can  co-exist  also  with  a  very  considerable  variety  of 
types  of  schools,  public  and  private,  denominational,  un- 
sectarian  and  secular,  classical  and  modern,  endowed  and 
municipal,  since  the  university  influence  and  inspection 
concerns  only  the  educational  part  of  the  work.  Our  ex- 
amination system  was  invented  in  part  to  allow  freedom 
and  variety  in  school  organisation,  as  contrasted  with  State 
organisation  and  control.  The  accrediting  method  does 


296       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

not  injure  these  necessary  features  of  any  satisfactory 
system  in  England. 

The  one  marked  superiority  of  the  American  secondary 
school  internal  organisation  over  the  English  is  the  strati- 
fication of  subjects  in  the  curriculum.    Four  or  five  only 
are  studied  in  one  year,  a  lesson  every  day.    If  we  could 
do  this  we  should  spare  our  pupils  overpressure  and  waste 
of  time  and  effort,  and  we  should  be  able  to  teach  on  better 
methods,  as  we  earnestly  desire.     Many  English  secondary 
teachers  are  obliged  to  use  methods  they  know  are  only 
second  best  because  they  have  examination  work  to  do, 
and  have,  say,  only  two  lessons  a  week  for  it,  because  so 
many  subjects  must  be  learnt  at  once.     If  we  could  have 
five  lessons  a  week  for  a  subject,  we  could  make  our  pupils 
work  more  for  themselves,  and  use  in  class  the  oral  method, 
which,  as  we  have  seen,  incorporates  the  best  elements  of  the 
American  recitation  method.     We  should  pursue,  in  fact, 
intensive  culture  for  shorter   periods  of  time.    With  the 
accrediting  system,  particularly  for  English,   history  and 
science,  this  simplification  would  be  possible ;  the  school 
would  certify,  e.g^  that  the  pupil  had  taken  two  years' 
history  or  chemistry,  and  that  would  be  enough.    In  another 
year  the  pupil  would  drop  these  subjects.    Even  if  examina- 
tions  could  be  divided  into  two  blocks,  something  could 
be    done    to    simplify    the    curriculum.    Then,     as     in 
America,  a  boy  could   take   algebra,  one  language  and 
history  at  the  end  of  the  penultimate  high  school  year,  and 
geometry,  the  other  language,  English,  and  science  at  the 
end  of  the  last  year.    We  ought  also  to  allow  a  pupil  who 
has  failed  in  one  subject  only  to  take  that  up  by  itself  at 
a  later  examination,  and  not  require  a  whole  year  to  be 
wasted,  when  a  pupil  is  ripe  to  go  to  college,  or  wants  to 
specialise  in  higher  work   during  a  last  year  at  school. 
There  are    known   cases   in   our  English   Matriculation 
examinations  where  a  steady,  hard-working,  well-prepared 


Conclusion  297 

pupil  from  a  good  school  has  gone  up  time  after  time  and 
failed  at  a  different  subject  each  time.  Such  a  pupil  may 
be  quite  ready  for  college,  but  is  injured  and  discouraged 
by  the  artificial  barriers  placed  in  the  way.  They  do  these 
things  better  in  America. 

It  is   in   these   two  ways,  one  believes,  that   English  fy>e**-4 
secondary  education  could  profit  by  following  American 
customs. 

It  is  indeed  easy  to  suggest  devices  whether  of  furniture 
or  organisation  that  we  might  adopt  in  England;  it  is 
much  more  difficult  to  indicate  characteristic  excellencies 
of  spirit  in  which  we  might  learn  from  America.  We  need 
to  liberalise  and  enfranchise  our  elementary  education  as 
they  have  done  during  the  last  generation,  They  have  learnt 
to  deformalise  what  is  too  often  regarded  as  formal  study, 
and  to  make  it  living,  so  that  the  children  can  assimilate  the 
lesson  material  to  themselves,  and  not  merely  learn  it  up 
mechanically.  Those  who  have  seen  the  teaching  of 
English  literature  in  the  public  elementary  school  of 
America  will  understand  what  is  meant  There  children 
read  the  English  classics  freely  and  happily,  enjoy  them, 
think  about  them  with  intelligence  and  sympathy,  and 
then  write  about  them  with  taste.  There  are,  of  course, 
elementary  schools  in  England  where  this  is  done,  but  the 
whole  spirit  of  our  system  has  been  against  it  ;  even  yet 
much  of  the  teaching  of  English  in  our  schools  for  the  people 
is  formal,  dull,  and  lifeless.1  The  teaching  of  geography  and 
Unked  States  history  in  an  American  elementary  school 
is  often,  too,  full  of  life  and  vigour  ;  these  subjects  have 
long  been  included  in  the  curriculum  and  have  not  been 
considered  unnecessary  luxuries  for  the  masses  of  the 
nation.  In  what  they  call  the  grammar  grades,  especially 


of  the  American  teachers  visiting  England  in  the  autumn  of 
1908  notice  this;  rarely  do  they  seem  impressed  by  the  excellencies  of  our 
public  elementary  education. 


298       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

from  twelve  to  fifteen  years  of  age,  our  schools,  in  the  more 
enlightened  areas,  are  better,  but  in  what  Americans  call  the 
primary  grades,  from  five  to  nine,  we  have  a  very  great  deal 
to  learn  from  them.  The  principles  of  Pestalozzi  and  Froebel 
have  penetrated  this  work  very  deeply ;  even  the  teaching 
of  writing  to  young  children  has  been  made  full  of  interest 
and  life.  We  need  more  freedom  of  spirit  in  our  public 
elementary  schools;  the  Board  of  Education  now  gives 
freedom  so  far  as  the  Code  is  concerned  ;  but  the  old 
mechanical  methods  are  still  often  required  locally,  and 
teachers  and,  above  all,  local  inspectors  still  bear  the  marks 
of  their  former  fetters. 

We  are  approximating  to  America  in  raising  the  educa- 
tional standard  of  our  primary  teachers.  The  recent  re- 
gulations of  the  Board  of  Education,  requiring,  as  they  do, 
a  good  secondary  education  to  eighteen  years  of  age,  are 
attracting  educated  girls  into  the  profession,  and  the  status 
and  remuneration  for  the  teachers  have  improved,  though 
much  still  remains  to  be  done  to  attract  and  retain  the 
best  type  of  men  teachers — a  matter,  however,  worse 
there  than  here,  What  is  to  be  desired  is  that  our  public 
elementary  schools  should  become  more  fully  what  they 
are  becoming  already  in  some  places,  the  schools  for  all ; 
what  America  proudly  calls  the  common  school.  A  great 
deal  of  our  difficulty  has  been  due  to  the  public  elementary 
school  being  essentially  a  class  institution,  paid  for  by  one 
set  of  people  to  do  good  to  the  children  of  another  set  of 
people.  If  we  could  improve  our  elementary  education,  as 
for  instance  is  being  done  in  the  West  Riding  of  Yorkshire, 
in  the  way  the  most  enlightened  American  cities  have  done, 
our  schools,  too,  would  be  used  by  the  middle  classes  as 
they  are  in  Washington,  in  the  West,  and  in  the  suburban 
areas  and  smaller  towns  of  New  England,  This  effect  is 
beginning  in  England,  especially  Industrial  England ; 
parents  see  that  they  cannot  afford  to  pay  for  a  private 


Conclusion  299 

school  which  will  give  as  good  an  education  as  the  free 
public  elementary  school  they  pay  for  through  the  rates 
and  taxes.  The  freedom  and  liberalisation  of  our  ele- 
mentary school  class-work  and  discipline  would  be  a  way 
to  this  common  use  of  the  school  by  all  classes,  and  a  result 
of  it.  It  has  been  achieved  here  and  there  already ;  we  can 
learn  from  places  like  Brookline,  in  Massachusetts,  from 
Indiana  and  from  California,  and  from  Teachers'  College 
at  Columbia  University  how  to  achieve  much  more. 

The  liberalisation  of  our  technical  education  is  also  a 
matter  where  we  might  profit  by  American  example.  We 
specialise  too  much ;  we  do  not  value,  because  we  do  not 
realise,  the  effect  of  a  liberal  education  in  helping  people 
to  do  their  ordinary  work  in  the  world.  The  class  distinc- 
tion, the  social  prejudice  which  has  been  the  curse  of  Eng- 
lish education,  and  which  has  prevented  Americans  from 
seeing  the  merits  that  after  all  it  does  possess,1  has  affected 
us  here.  What  is  the  good  (we  say)  of  teaching  literature 
and  history  to  a  boy  who  is  to  be  a  working  engineer  ? 
What  is  the  good  of  a  girl  clerk  learning  mathematics  or 
science?  What  do  working-people  want  with  education 
except  in  the  craft  they  get  their  living  by?  This  has 
been  the  normal  English  opinion  for  all  except  the  upper 
classes.  The  gentleman  was  to  have  a  liberal  education  in 
the  humanities,  Latin  and  Greek ;  technical  training  in 
the  narrow  sense  was  all  that  was  needed  for  the  rest  of 
the  community.  This  view  has  affected,  and  still  affects,  our 
technical  education,  good  as  that  is.  We  do  not  demand 
firmly  enough — we  should  hardly  get  it  at  present  if  we 
did — a  good  general  education  as  a  condition  before  techni- 
cal training  begins.  How  many  of  our  technical  schools 

1 "  We  have  only  to  look  at  England  to  see  how,  with  her  high  ideals, 
great  opportunities,  and  large  expenditures  for  education,  the  people  find 
themselves  hampered  at  every  turn  in  striving  to  effect  reforms,  by  social 
and  economic  conditions  "  (N.  M.  Butler,  Educational  Review,  October, 
1899,  p.  290). 


300      Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 

could  hold  up  the  entrance  standard  of  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology  and  get  anything  like  the  same 
number  of  youths  to  pass  it  ?  How  far  beyond  English 
present  conditions  is  the  amount  of  general  liberal  educa- 
tion given  to  intending  clerks  in  an  American  Commercial 
High  School?  How  absurd  as  yet,  to  many  cultivated 
people  here,  is  the  idea  of  a  university  degree  in  domestic 
arts,  including  as  it  does  in  America  science,  literature,  and 
history  ?  The  American  trade  school  teaches  work-girls 
civics ;  the  young  American  engineer  at  college  is  made  to 
take  some  humanistic  subjects ;  the  teacher  of  needlework 
is  required  to  study  art,  design,  the  history  of  costume  and 
of  textiles.  We  give  all  the  time  to  the  requirement  of 
specialised  skill,  and  we  get  a  higher  degree  of  that  special 
capacity.  This  is  in  accordance  with  our  instinct  for  selec- 
tion and  cultivation  of  special  powers.  But  we  could  surely 
learn  from  America  as  she  from  us ;  she  needs  more 
specialist  instruction,  we  need  in  our  technical  education  a 
higher  standard  of  that  general  liberal  culture  which  makes 
the  human  being  more  intelligent  and  more  adaptable. 

In  university  education  there  is  also  a  difference  of  spirit, 
of  intention,  of  the  deep  instinctive  purpose  which  makes 
nations  act,  that  is  much  to  the  advantage  of  America. 
In  Chapter  III.  an  attempt  is  made  to  explain  this  differ- 
ence. Under  modern  conditions  we  need  to  learn  from 
America  how  to  strengthen  and  elevate  our  universities, 
and  to  bring  them  into  closer,  deeper  relation  with  every 
side  of  our  national  life,  so  that  they  can  furnish  for  us  the 
illumination,  the  intelligence,  the  virtue  she  gains  from  hers. 
Mr.  Haldane  in  his  recent  address  on  the  Dedicated  Life,1 
and  Lord  Morley  in  his  Inaugural  Speech  as  Chancellor 
of  the  University  of  Manchester,2  have  given  us  the  princi- 
ples of  action.  We  can  see  these  carried  out  into  effect  in 

1  Army  Reform  and  other  Addresses,  Macmillan,  1908. 

2  gth  July,  1908. 


Conclusion  301 

America.  Men  like  President  Eliot  have  made  their  in 
fluence  felt  over  the  whole  field  of  education,  elementary 
and  secondary,  as  well  as  higher.  Harvard  is  national  not 
sectional,  is  for  the  poor  man  as  well  as  for  the  rich.  Both 
old  and  new  universities  there  have  sought  to  meet  the 
needs  of  their  community,  while  maintaining  standards  of 
scholarship  and  adding  by  research  to  the  sum  of  know- 
ledge. They  have  their  reward  in  the  support  and  affec- 
tion of  the  people.  We  must  have  this  too. 

It  is  coming,  especially  in  our  new  urban  universities, 
that  thrill  responsive  to  the  life  around  them.  To  stand 
in  the  magnificent  hall  of  the  University  of  Birmingham, 
at  Bournbrook,  which  equals  if  it  does  not  surpass  in 
splendour  of  architecture  and  nobility  of  execution  even 
American  university  buildings,  is  to  realise  that  here  are 
the  courage  and  the  faith  we  need  in  the  mission  of  learning 
to  twentieth-century  England ;  if  she  can  only  be  worthy 
of  her  beautiful  home,  the  University  of  Birmingham  ought 
to  achieve  as  much  as  Chicago,  Cornell,  or  Johns  Hopkins 
in  Baltimore.  We  must  go  on  in  this  road  :  the  birth  and 
infant  vigour  of  the  University  of  Sheffield,  the  movement 
for  providing  Bristol  and  the  West  with  another  university, 
the  growing  pride  of  Newcastle  in  its  Science  College,  the 
hold  of  the  University  of  Wales  on  the  Principality,  the 
practical  work  already  accomplished  in  Leeds,  the  ex- 
traordinary success,  the  local  support  that  Liverpool  has 
secured  in  so  short  a  period,  the  mature  scholarship  and  ex- 
tended growth  of  the  University  of  Manchester,  the  complex 
development  and  advancing  achievement  of  the  University 
of  London — all  these  show  that  we  are  on  the  right  way. 
They  have  the  intellectual  standards ;  they  are  doing  at 
least  as  much  in  research  as  the  older  universities.  They 
need  the  means  of  a  fuller  social  life  for  their  students,  and 
since  they  have  not "  the  glorious  inherited  associations  of 
the  two  ancient  seats  of  learning,"  they  must  have  the 


302       Impressions  of  American  Education  in    1908 

strength  that  comes  from  the  support  of  the  people,  from 
the  confidence  that  they,  too,  have  their  place  in  and  their 
duty  for  England.  They  can  help  the  workers,  can,  as 
Lord  Morley  said  in  Manchester,  "  extend  to  that  great  host, 
so  ingenious  and  so  industrious,  and  who  make  so  many 
sacrifices  in  their  hard  lives — we  should  extend  to  them 
such  measure  as  we  can,  some  knowledge  of  the  kind  that 
makes  life  rich  for  us  ".  If  our  universities  do  their  best 
they  may  hope  to  obtain,  like  American  colleges  and  uni- 
versities, trust,  affection,  and  practical  help  from  every 
section  of  the  community. 

We  return  at  the  close  to  what  meets  us  at  the  beginning 
of  any  study  of  American  schools — the  intensity  and  force 
of  their  belief  in  education.  This  is  their  great  superiority ; 
if  only  we  could  learn  to  do  likewise,  all  our  educational 
problems  would  be  solved,  all  our  difficulties  would  melt 
before  such  a  heat  of  national  conviction.  But  this  con- 
viction we  do  not  possess.  We  have  very  fine  educational 
machinery,  better  in  some  ways  than  that  of  America ; 
but  we  have  neither  the  steam  nor  the  current  to  drive  it : 
we  have  to  turn  the  cranks  by  hand,  we  educators,  to  gener- 
ate the  force,  such  as  it  is,  ourselves.  What  can  be  done  to 
make  English  people  believe  in  education  as  America  does, 
as  Switzerland  does,  as  Scotland  has  done  for  centuries  ? 
Will  it  take  a  Jena,  a  Sedan  ?  and  if  such  national  disaster 
came  to  us  also,  should  we,  like  Germany  or  like  France, 
reconstruct  the  schools  and  the  colleges  and  look  to  them 
for  salvation  ?  That  is  not  our  fashion  of  doing  things. 

There  is  some  hope :  our  wealthier  middle  classes  are 
affected  by  the  industrial  and  commercial  competition  of 
the  educated  nations,  Germany  and  America;  and  they 
are  realising  the  need  of  a  better  education  for  the  new 
generation  under  the  new  conditions,  when  life  is  more 
difficult,  the  outlook  wider,  and  trained  intelligence  more 
essential  than  forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  Our  poorer  middle 


Conclusion  303 

class  are  seizing  eagerly  the  new  opportunities  for  educa- 
tion open  since  1902 ;  they  already  believe  in  what  they 
know  is  the  one  hope  for  their  children.  Our  working- 
men  and  women  are  beginning  to  believe  in  education, 
though  they  do  not  always  understand  what  is  the  best 
kind.  That  the  superior  artisan — one  of  the  finest  types 
we  have,  the  man  of  whom  our  ablest  Labour  leaders  are 
made — that  he  should  care  for,  and  believe  in,  education 
as  he  does  to-day  is  one  of  the  most  hopeful  features  of 
the  whole  position.  The  education  policy  of  the  Labour 
Party  may  be  wrong  for  the  moment — their  demand  for 
a  purely  secular  system,  though  intelligible,  is  hugely  wrong 
— but  that  they  should  have  a  policy,  should  seek  after 
and  struggle  for  education  as  if  they  were  Americans,  is  a 
great  fact  The  English  institutions  for  higher  education, 
universities,  colleges,  secondary  schools  must  make  them- 
selves understood  by  the  masses  of  the  people.  Too  long 
have  we  allowed  class  prejudice,  on  both  sides,  to  obscure 
the  real  unity  of  our  system.  Let  us  learn  from  America : 
not  methods  and  devices,  tricks  of  organisation,  details  of 
machinery,  standards  of  scholarship,  principles  of  teaching 
— we  have  perhaps  something  to  show  her  here ;  but  let 
us  learn  the  spirit  of  true  democracy,  the  spirit  that  seeks 
to  make  of  divers  folk  one  nation,  by  offering  to  all  the 
treasures  of  knowledge,  by  giving  to  each,  man  and  woman, 
high  and  low,  rich  and  poor,  that  best  and  most  enduring 
possession,  the  spiritual  inheritance  of  the  race,  which  can 
be  assured  to  them  only  by  education. 


APPENDIX. 

i.  FOR  CHAPTER  I. 

MCKINLEY  HIGH  SCHOOL, 
ST.  Louis,  Mo.,  jth  September,  1907. 

DEAR  SIR, 

Preliminary  to  the  making  of  a  programme  for  the 
Secondary  Department  of  the  National  Education  Association 
for  the  Cleveland  Meeting,  it  is  the  desire  of  the  Committee  to 
secure  in  brief  the  best  thought  of  the  best  men  on  the  most 
important  subjects  deserving  our  attention.  We,  therefore, 
respectfully  ask  that  you  give  the  following  questions  your 
careful  attention,  and  that  you  answer  those  which  interest  you 
with  as  much  fulness  as  your  time  will  permit.  A  full  reply  is 
especially  desired  to  those  questions  on  which  you  have  decided 
opinions  or  positive  convictions. 

The  Secondary  School,  on  account  of  its  position  in  our 
educational  system,  its  intimate  relation  and  contact  with  the 
elementary  school  on  one  side,  and  the  college  on  the  other, 
and  on  account  of  the  demands  put  upon  it  as  a  fitting  school 
for  life,  has  become  an  arena  of  diverse  opinions  and  ideas. 
These  ideas  embody  social,  pedagogical  and  economic  condi- 
tions which  make  the  high  school  curriculum  the  main  centre 
for  departure  and  differentiation.  For  these  reasons  the 
function  of  the  Secondary  Department  of  N.  E.  A.  has  grown 
to  such  importance  that  its  councils  should  be  representative 

305  20 


306       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

of  the  best  thought  of  our  time.  No  apology,  therefore,  is 
needed  in  asking  for  your  co-operation,  and  we  hope  to  receive 
your  answers  at  your  very  earliest  convenience. 

QUESTIONS. 

1.  Assuming  that  field  athletics  are  wholesome  and  necessary, 
(a)  Should  they  be  confined  to  the  home  field  ?  or  does  the  ex- 
perience of  the  past  justify  the  further  encouragement  of  inter- 
school  contests?     (6)  Considering  the  small  number  of  boys 
engaged  in  inter-scholastic  contests,  the  unpleasant  feeling  often 
engendered   between  schools,  the  semi-professional  methods 
employed,  the  associations  with  the  idle,  sporting  classes,  the 
notoriety  given  to  relatively  unworthy  students,  has  the  time 
arrived  when  a  correction  of  these  evils  should  be  sought  in  a 
more  rational  management  of  athletics  on  the  home  field  ?     If 
so,  have  you  a  plan  of  organisation  and  management  ? 

2.  Have  you   ever   felt   that   our   high   school   pupils   are 
missing  those  experiences  which  belong  to  early  youth,  and 
that  the  aping  of  college  ways  through  fraternities  and  soror- 
ities,  athletic  teams,  "proms"  and  balls  are  arresting  their 
normal  development  ?     If  so,  what  is  the  remedy  ? 

3.  (a)  Are  our  graduation  exercises  too  elaborate  and  ex- 
pensive ?     And  do  they  work  a  hardship  on  all  but  the  wealthy  ? 
(£)  Is  the  ambition  of  a  child  to  appear  at  graduation  on  the 
stage  of  the  largest  and  most  expensive  opera  house  in  town  a 
wholesome  one?     (c)  Outside  of  it  being  "an  event  in  their 
lives,"  is  it  fundamentally  good  education  ? 

4.  (a)  Do  you  believe  that  the  method  of  class  recitation 
generally  in  vogue  in  our  high  schools  neglects  the  individual 
needs  of  pupils  and  is  in  any  way  responsible  for  the  many 
failures   to   pass   in   their   studies?     (b)    Are   pupils   usually 
assisted  WHEN  and  ONLY  when  they  NEED  it  ?     (c)  If  not,  what 
is  the  remedy? 


Appendix  307 

5.  (a)  In  the  outward  extension  of  the  course  of  study  in 
response  to  demands  for  so-called  vocational  studies,  has  the 
time  come  to  modify  the  honoured  doctrine  that  culture  can 
come  only  through  certain  formal  studies?     (b)  And  may  a 
training  which  leads  to  economic  efficiency  in  those  who  elect 
it  take  the  place  of  a  certain  amount  of  foreign  language, 
mathematics  and  literature  ?     If  so,  would  such  an  admission 
solve  the  problem  of  overcrowded  courses  ? 

6.  (a)  Would  the  downward  extension  of  the  high  school  course 
so  as  to  include  what  are  now  the  7th  and  8th  grades  add  to 
the  efficiency  of  our  schools?     (b)  If  so,  in  what  way? 

7.  (a)  Assuming  that  singing  in  some  form  is  a  good  thing 
in  the  high  school,  in  what  way  should  it  be  handled?     (b) 
Which  is  better,    compulsory   routine   chorus   singing,  or  an 
elective  course  of  systematic  instruction  in  singing  for  which 
pupils  electing  it  might  receive  credit  ? 

8.  Should  the  curricula  of  our  high  schools  be  cosmopolitan, 
comprising  all  branches,  academic,  commercial  and  mechanical, 
which  have  proved  their  right  to  a  place  in  the  secondary  school  ? 
Or  should  there  be  separate  schools  for  special  work  ? — in  other 
words,  should  the  differentiation  be  between  departments  or 
between  schools? 

9.  Should  the  courses  of  study  and  the  manual  training  in 
the  high  school  be  so  modified  and  differentiated  as  to  meet 
the  growing  demand  for  "industrial"  education?  or  should 
this  movement  be  toward  the  building  of  separate  schools  ? 

10.  In  classifying  our  schools  how  far  should  we  aim  at  sex 
segregation  in  the  class  room  ? 

11.  Will  you  please  suggest  any  other  questions  which  you 
consider  important  and  timely  ? 

Thanking  you  in  advance  for  your  answer,  I  remain, 
Yours  sincerely, 

GILBERT  B.  MORRISON. 

20* 


308         Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


2.  FOR  CHAPTER  I. 

COURSE  OF  STUDY— PHILADELPHIA  HIGH  SCHOOL  FOR  GIRLS. 
SPRING  GARDEN  AND  SEVENTEENTH  STREETS. 


GENERAL  COURSE. 

COLLEGE  PREPARATORY  COURSES. 

5  English. 

5  English. 

is 

5  Algebra. 

5  Algebra. 

nj 

5  History. 

5  Botany. 

r* 

4  German  or  French. 

5  Latin. 

to 
w 

2  Physical  Geography. 

2  Drawing. 

£ 

i  Music. 

i  Music. 

2  Physical  Training. 

2  Physical  Training. 

i  Drawing. 

4  English. 

CLASSICAL. 

LATIN  SCIENTIFIC. 

1 

5  Mathematics. 
4  History. 
4  German    or    French 

4  English. 
5  Plane  Geometry. 
5  French  "\  Students  elect 

4  English. 
5  Plane  Geometry. 

TT*      .   - 

T3 

§ 

(continued). 
4  Botany. 

5  German  V   two  foreign 
5  Greek     )     languages. 

4  History. 
4  German  or  French. 
6"  Latin 

U 

C/3 

2  Drawing, 
i  Music, 
i  Physical  Training. 

6  Latin. 
Physical  Training  (op- 
tional). 

i  Drawing, 
i  Physical  Training. 

5  English. 
4  History. 

4  English. 
6  Latin. 

4  English. 

Third  Year. 

4  German    or    French 
(continued). 
J5  Latin,  French  or  Ger- 
man. 
4  Zoology, 
i  Drawing. 
i  Music. 
i  Physical  Training. 

4  French  ^  Electives  of 
4  German  V    the  second 
4  Greek     }  year  continued 
5  Mathematical  Review. 
2  Physical  Geography. 
Physical  Training  (op- 
tional). 

6  Latin. 
5  German  or  French. 
4  History. 
4  Zoology, 
i  Drawing. 
Physical  Training  (op- 
tional). 

4  English. 
4  Mathematics. 

5  English. 

4  English. 

S* 

4  Latin,  French  or  Ger- 

Electives 

4  German  or  French. 

man  (continued). 

\  Greek      1      continued- 

5  Mathematical  Review. 

>< 
4j 

4  Chemistry. 
4  Physics. 

J     VJ  1  CC  r».          J 

5  History  of  Greece  and 

3  History. 
5  Latin. 

1 

2  Physiology, 
i  Drawing, 
i  Music, 
i  Physical  Training. 

5  Latin. 
Physical  Training  (op- 
tional). 

4  Physics. 
Physical  Training  (op- 
tional). 

1  Pupils  having  had  two  years  of  German  or  French  take  up  a  second  foreign 
language,  completing  three  years  of  one  language  and  two  years  of  a  second 
language  before  graduation.  [Continued  on  next  page. 


Appendix 


309 


Each  candidate  for  admission  will  elect  one  of  the  above  courses  of  study. 

Graduates  from  either  of  these  courses  may  enter  the  Philadelphia  Normal 
School. 

By  proper  elections  in  the  College  Preparatory  Courses,  students  may  be  pre- 
pared for  any  American  college  which  admits  women. 

The  Principal  may  be  found  in  his  office  during  school  hours,  and  will  be 
pleased  to  advise  with  candidates  or  with  their  parents  regarding  courses  of 
study. 


April,  1907. 


WM.  W.  BIRDSALL,  Principal. 


3.  FOR  CHAPTER  II. 

TIME  TABLES  OF  THE  HORACE  MANN  ELEMENTARY  SCHOOLS, 

NEAR  YORK. 

GRADE  VII. — AGE  13. 


Monday. 

Tuesday. 

Wednesday. 

Thursday. 

Friday. 

9-9.15  —  Chapel  Exercises. 

History, 

History, 

History, 

History, 

Grammar, 

9.15. 

9-15- 

9.15. 

9.15. 

9.15. 

Geography, 
9-45- 

Geography, 
9-45- 

Manual 
Training, 

Geography, 
9-45- 

Geography, 
9.45. 

Composition, 
10.20. 

Spelling  and 
Literature, 
10.20. 

9-45-«- 

Spelling  and 
Grammar, 
10.20. 

Art, 

10.20. 

11-11.15  —  Recess. 

Chorus, 

Arithmetic, 

Arithmetic, 

Arithmetic, 

Arithmetic, 

11.15. 

11.15. 

11.15. 

11.15. 

11.15. 

Grammar  and 

French  and 

French  and 

French  and 

French  and 

Spelling, 

German, 

German, 

German, 

German, 

J.I.45- 

12. 

12. 

12. 

12. 

Free, 

Gymnasium, 

Gymnasium, 

Gymnasium, 

Literature, 

12.30. 

12.30. 

12.30. 

12.30. 

12.30. 

310        Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


GRADE  IV. — AGE  10. 


Monday. 

Tuesday. 

Wednesday. 

Thursday. 

Friday. 

9-9.15  —  Chapel  Exercises. 

Arithmetic, 

Arithmetic, 

Arithmetic, 

Arithmetic, 

Arithmetic, 

9.15.    - 

9.15. 

9-15' 

9.15. 

9.15. 

Penmanship, 

Penmanship, 

Penmanship, 

Penmanship, 

Penmanship, 

9-45- 

9.45- 

9-45- 

9-45- 

9-45- 

Manual  Train- 

Gymnasium, 

Gymnasium, 

Gymnasium, 

Gymnasium, 

ing, 

10. 

10. 

IO. 

IO. 

10-10.40. 

Language  and 
Spelling, 

Language  and 
Spelling, 

Language  and 
Spelling, 

Language  and 
Spelling, 

10.20. 

10.20. 

10.20. 

10.20. 

10.40-10.55  —  Recess. 

Geography, 
History  or 
Nature, 

Geography, 
History  or 
Nature, 

Geography, 
History  or 
Nature, 

Geography, 
History  or 
Nature, 

Geography, 
History  or 
Nature, 

10.55. 

10.55. 

10.55- 

10.55. 

10.55. 

Free, 

Free, 

Free, 

Free, 

Music, 

11.25. 

11.25. 

11.25. 

11.25. 

11.25. 

Spelling, 
"•55- 

Reading  and 
Literature, 

Reading  and 
Literature, 

Reading  and 
Literature, 

Free, 
11.45. 

Music, 
12.15. 

"•55- 
Art, 

"•55- 
Chorus, 

11.55- 
Manual  Train- 

Reading and 
Literature, 

Reading  and 
Literature, 

12.25. 

12.  IO. 

Art, 

ing, 
12.15. 

12.15. 

12.35. 

12.35- 

Appendix 


GRADE  II. — AGE  7. 


Monday. 

Tuesday. 

Wednesday. 

Thursday. 

Friday. 

9-9.15  —  Chapel  Exercises. 

Nature  Study, 
9-15- 

Nature  Study, 
9.15. 

Nature  Study, 
9-I5- 

Nature  Study, 
9.15- 

Reading  "  B," 
9.15- 

Reading  "B," 
9-35- 

Reading  "  B," 
9-35- 

Reading  «'  B," 
9-35- 

Chorus, 
9-35- 

Penmanship, 
9.40. 

Arithmetic, 
9-55- 

Arithmetic, 
10.5. 

Arithmetic, 
10.5. 

Arithmetic, 
9.50. 

Arithmetic, 
9-55- 

Language, 

10.20. 

Music, 
10.25. 

Language, 
10.25. 

Reading  "  B," 
10.15. 

Language, 

10.  2O. 

10.40-10.55  —  Recess. 

Reading  "A," 
n. 

Gymnasium, 
n. 

Gymnasium, 
ii. 

Gymnasium, 
ii. 

Gymnasium, 
ii. 

Gymnasium, 
11.25. 

Reading  "  A," 

11.20. 

Reading  "  A," 

11.20. 

Reading  "A," 

11.20. 

Reading  "A," 
1  1.  20. 

Art, 
11.45. 

Languages, 
11.50. 

Penmanship, 
11.50. 

Spelling, 
11.50. 

Spelling, 
11-50. 

Spelling, 

12.20. 

Free, 
12.30. 

Spelling, 

12.10. 

Manual 
Training, 

1  2.  2O. 

Manual 
Training, 

12.20. 

Music, 
12.35. 

Penmanship, 

12. 

Art, 

1  2.  2O. 

Phonics, 

12. 

Manual 
Training, 

12.10. 

Free, 
12.45. 

Free, 
12.45. 

312       Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 
4.  FOR  CHAPTER  III. 

NORTH  CENTRAL  ASSOCIATION  OF  COLLEGES  AND 
SECONDARY  SCHOOLS. 


Date  of  Inspection                

Ins] 

)cctor 

Name  of  Teachers. 

Prepara- 
tion. 

Subjects 
Taught. 

Number 
Recitations 
Daily. 

Efficiency. 

Superintendent. 

Principal  of  High  School. 

Appendix  313 

General  character  of  work  done  in 

English  and  Literature _ 

Classical  Literature 

Modern   Languages  

Mathematics „ 

History  and  Civics 

Biological   Sciences 

Experimental   Sciences 

General  character  and  care  of  library : 

Reference „ - 

Literature 

History  and  Civics 

Biography 

Science 

Miscellaneous  

Documentary  Reports. 


General  character  and  care  of  laboratories,  apparatus,  etc. : 

Physics 

Chemistry 

Botany 

Zoolocrv 

oj 

Physical  Geography 


314      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

High  School  Building — Separate? Structure 

Lighting Heating Ventilation 

Capacity  Care  

Genera]  organisation : 

Course  of  study 

Management 

Discipline 

Intellectual  and  moral  tone 

School  sentiment  in  community : 

College  or  University  sentiment  in  school  and  community  : 

Needs  of  the  school : 

Recommendations : 
To  the  school 

To  the  University 


Appendix  315 

5.  FOR  CHAPTER  III. 

NORTH  CENTRAL  ASSOCIATION  OF  COLLEGES  AND 
SECONDARY  SCHOOLS. 

ANNUAL  REPORT  of  the High  School 

for  the  school  year  beginning 190 

GENERAL  STATISTICS  : 

1.  Population  of  city 

2.  Number  of  children  of  school  age 

3.  Total  enrolment  in  public  school  this  year  to  date 

4.  Total  enrolment  in  high  school  this  year  to  date 

5.  Number  of  teachers  in  the  high  school 

6.  Number  of  teachers  below  the  high  school „ 

7.  Number  of  weeks  in  school  year „ 

8.  Number  of  daily  recitations  for  each  teacher  in  the  high  school 

9.  Average  length  of  recitation  period minutes. 

10.  Number  of  units  of  work  required  for  graduation.  (For  the  defi- 
nition of  a  unit  see  the  Proceedings  of  the  North  Central  Associa- 
tion of  Colleges  and  Secondary  Schools  for  1902,  Report  of  the 
Commission  on  Accredited  Schools) ~ 

n.  How  many  graduates  of  your  high  school  are  now  attending  higher 
institutions  of  learning  ? 

12.  What  higher  institutions  are  most  of  them  attending  ? 

13.  How  many  of  your  high  school  teachers  have  had  special  training, 

either  in  normal  school  or  in  college,  undergraduate  or  graduate, 
in  the  subjects  they  are  now  teaching  in  the  high  school  ?  (For 
example,  have  your  teachers  of  English  or  mathematics  made 
special  preparation  in  that  subject  ?) 

14.  How  many  have  had  pedagogical   training  either  in  college  or 

normal  school  equivalent  to  one  hour  daily  throughout  one 
year? 

15.  How  many  who  are  not  college  graduates  have  a  scholastic  pre- 

paration which,  in  your  judgment,  is  equivalent  to  that  required 
for  graduation  from  a  college  of  good  standing? 

16.  In  the  selection  of  new  teachers  is  it  the  policy  of  your  school 

board  to  employ  none  but  college  graduates? 


316          Impressions  of  American  Education  in  1908 


TEACHERS. 


Names. 

Scholastic  Preparation. 

Experience. 

Subjects. 

[  No.  Recitations  Daily. 

No.  Years 
as  Student 
in 

Names  of  High 
Schools  or 
Academies,  State 
Normal  Schools, 
Colleges  or  Uni- 
versities Attended, 
with  Degree 
Received  from  each. 

No.  Years 
as  Teacher 
including 
this  Year. 

Grade  of  Teacher's  Certificate 
now  held. 

Now  Taught  by 
these  Teachers 
and  to  be 
Taught  by  them 
this  School 
Year. 

High  School  or  Academy. 

State  Normal  School. 

College  or  University. 

2 

0 

H 

1  In  Secondary  Schools. 

In  this  School. 

Superintendent. 

Principal  of  High  School. 

Appendix 


317 


LIBRARY  FACILITIES  :  Is  there  a  city  library  easily  accessible  to  your  high 

school  pupils  ? How  many  volumes  does  it  contain  ? 

Number  of  volumes  in  the  high  school  library — 

Reference  books  (dictionaries,  encyclopaedias,  etc.) Litera- 
ture    History  and  Civics Biography 

~ Science Mathematics _ 

Documentary  Reports Miscellaneous 

Total 

LABORATORY  FACILITIES.    Estimated  value  of  laboratory  apparatus  and 
supplies : 

Physics    .        .        $ Remarks 

Chemistry         .        f „      

Botany      .        .        $ „      

Zoology   .        .        $ „      

Physical  Geography  f „      „.. 

TEXT  BOOKS. 

Latin  Grammar General  History 

Latin  Reader  (ist  yr.) Grecian  History 

Caesar    Roman  History _ 

Cicero  English  History 

Virgil     U.S.  History 

Latin  Prose  Comp. Civil  Government 

Greek  Grammar Physical  Geography 

Greek  Reader Physics 

Anabasis    Chemistry 

Aleebra  Botany 

o  J 

Geometry  Zoology    

English  Composition Physiology    

English  Literature German  Grammar 

American   Literature German  Reader  (ist  yr.) 

Rhetoric — - 

English  Grammar —.. 

Mediaeval  and  Modem  History  __>___. 

Superintendent. 

„ Principal. 

Date 


318       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

6.  FOR  CHAPTER  V. 
COLLEGE  ENTRANCE  EXAMINATION  BOARD. 

\Two  papers  are  taken  in  general^ 
ENTRANCE  EXAMINATION  IN  HISTORY. 

ELEMENTARY. 

Note. — Time  :  Two  hours.     Candidates  will  answer  the  first  two  ques- 
tions and  four  others.     The  principal  dates  are  to  be  given  in  all  cases. 

Ancient  History. 

1.  Explain  the  following  terms :  Decarchy,  Exarch,  Tribune, 
Papyrus,  Peloponnesian  League. 

2.  Mark  on  the  outline  map  the  position  of  the  following 
places,  and  associate  each  with  an  historical  event :  Amphipolis, 
Melos,  Milan,  Jerusalem.     Draw  the  boundary  of  the  Roman 
Empire  as  it  was  in  the  time  of  the  Gracchi. 

3.  Give  an  account  of  the  Persians  from  the  earliest  times  to 
the  battle  of  Marathon.     Why  did  they  make  war  upon  the 
Greeks  ? 

4.  Describe  the  government  of  Athens  under  Pericles  with 
reference  chiefly  to  (a)  council  and  assembly,  (b)  law  courts, 
(c)  magistrates,  (d)  general  character. 

5.  Give  an  account   of  the   principate   of  the   Antonines. 
What  was  the  condition  of  the  Empire  in  their  time  ? 

6.  Give  an  account  of  the  invasion  and  settlement  of  the 
Lombards.    What  were  the  effects  of  their  occupation  of  Italy  ? 

7.  What  did  the  Romans  learn  from  the  Greeks  ?     What  con- 
tributions did  the  Romans  make  to  the  progress  of  the  world  ? 

ENTRANCE  EXAMINATION  IN  HISTORY. 

ELEMENTARY. — SEPTEMBER,  1907. 

Note. — Time:  Two  hours.    Candidates  will  answer  the  first  two  ques- 
tions and  four  others.    The  principal  dates  are  to  be  given  in  all  cases. 


Appendix  319 

Mediceval  and  Modern  History. 

1 .  Why  are  the  following  men  famous  in  history :  Petrarch, 
Gregory  VII.,  Voltaire,  Savonarola,  Metternich? 

2.  Mark  on  the  outline  map  the  position  of  the  following 
places,   and  associate   each  with  an  historical  event:   Trent, 
Alsace-Lorraine,  Avignon,  Prague,  Worms,  Silesia. 

3.  Explain  the  following  terms:   Holy  Alliance,  interdict, 
Koran,  feudal  aids,  Concordat. 

4.  What  were  the  leading  principles  of  the  Catholic  Church 
which  Martin  Luther  attacked  ? 

5.  What  were  the  substantial  results  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution ? 

6.  Explain  why  Latin  was  the  language  of  scholars  through- 
out the  Middle  Ages. 

7.  Give  the  chief  steps  in  the  formation  of  German  unity. 

ENTRANCE  EXAMINATION  IN  HISTORY. 

ELEMENTARY. — SEPTEMBER,  1907. 

Note. — Time :  Two  hours.    Candidates  will  answer  the  first  two  ques- 
tions and  four  others.    The  principal  dates  are  to  be  given  in  all  cases. 

English  History. 

1.  Explain  the    following   terms :    Domesday   Book,    Dis- 
establishment, Star  Chamber,  Danegeld,  New  Model. 

2.  Mark  on  the  outline  map  the  position  of  the  following 
places,  and  associate  each  with  an  historical  event :  Lewes,  The 
Pale,  Canterbury,  Runnymede,  Marston  Moor. 

3.  Why  are  the  following  men  famous  in  English  history : 
Duke  of  Marlborough,  Anselm,  Lord  John  Russell,  Earl  of 
Chatham,  Thomas  Cromwell,  Wellington  ? 

4.  Under  what  circumstances  did  Wales  and  Scotland  re- 
spectively become  united  with  England  ? 


320      Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

5.  Outline  the  growth  of  England's  maritime  and  colonial 
power  from  1700  to  1763. 

6.  Name  some  political  reforms  in  England  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  which  resulted  from  the  discontent  of  working- 
men. 

7.  In  what  respects  did  the  Revolution  of  1688  differ  from 
the  Puritan  Revolution? 

ENTRANCE  EXAMINATION  IN  HISTORY. 

ELEMENTARY. — SEPTEMBER,  1907. 

Note. — Time :  Two  hours.    Candidates  will  answer  the  first  two  ques- 
tions and  four  others.     The  principal  dates  are  to  be  given  in  all  cases. 

American  History. 

1.  Explain  the  following  terms:  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws, 
Civil  Service  Reform,  Wilmot  Proviso,  Ku-Klux  Klan,  Ken- 
tucky and  Virginia  Resolutions. 

2.  Mark  on  the  outline  map  the  position  of  the  following, 
and  associate  each  with  an  historical  event:  Fort  Duquesne, 
Shenandoah  Valley,  Florida  Purchase,  Jamestown,  Mason  and 
Dixon's  Line. 

3.  Describe  the  colonisation   of  New   York,   New  Jersey, 
Pennsylvania  and  Maryland. 

4.  What  was  the  importance  of  Henry  Clay's  services  to  the 
Union  ? 

5.  In  what  ways  did  the  form  of  our  national  government 
in  1790  differ  from  that  in  1782  ? 

6.  State  the  causes  of  the  Civil  War,  and  name  the  seceding 
States. 

7.  Under  what  circumstances  have  additions  to  territory  been 
made  by  the  United  States  since  1860? 


Appendix  321 

MASSACHUSETTS  INSTITUTE  OF  TECHNOLOGY. 
ENTRANCE  EXAMINATION. 

SEPTEMBER,  1906. 

UNITED  STATES  HISTORY. 

Note. — Time :  One  hour  and  a  half.    Answer  any  SIX  questions,  and 
answer  them  FULLY. 

1 .  Give  the  principal  facts  connected  with  the  settlement  and 
colonial  history  of  Rhode  Island. 

2.  State  the  advantages  of  the  Navigation  Acts  for  England 
and  their  disadvantages  for  the  colonies. 

3.  What  were  the  causes  of  the  War  of  1812?     Were  they 
sufficient  to  justify  war?     What  did  the  United  States  gain 
from  the  war? 

4.  How  did  climatic,  agricultural  and  industrial  conditions 
affect  the  slavery  question,  both  in  the  colonial  period  and 
subsequently  until  1860? 

5.  Trace  carefully  the  steps  leading  up  to  the  annexation  of 
Texas,  and  consider  the  questions  arising  from  the  annexation. 

6.  Give  an  account  of  the  exceptional  features  of  the  presi- 
dential elections  of  1800  and  1860. 

7.  Explain  the  method  of  nominating  and  electing  members 
of  the  United  States  House  of  Representatives ;  give  the  quali- 
fications of  voters  and  of  candidates,  and  state  how  these  are 
determined. 

ANCIENT  HISTORY. 

Note. — Time :  One  hour  and  a  half.    Answer  any  FIVE  questions,  and 
answer  them  FULLY. 

1 .  Tell  what  you  can  of  (a)  the  Athenian  Assembly  in  the 
time  of  Pericles,  and  (£)  the  Comitia  Tributa  of  Rome. 

2 .  Relate  very  briefly  two  of  the  following  myths,  telling  further 
anything  that  you  can  regarding  the  probable  origin  and  the 

21 


322       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

historical  value  of  the  story :  (a)  myth  of  the  Trojan  ancestry 
of  the  Romans ;  (b)  myth  of  the  Sabine  women ;  (c]  myth  of 
Servius  Tullius. 

3.  Outline   the  origin,    development   and   downfall   of  the 
maritime  Empire  of  Athens. 

4.  Enumerate  and  briefly  explain  the  principal  measures  (a) 
of  Tiberius  Gracchus  and  (b)  of  Gaius  Gracchus. 

5.  Tell    all    that    you    can    of  the   reign    and   policy   of 
Hadrian. 

6.  Locate  eight  of  the  following  and  mention  some  historical 
fact  regarding  each :  Milan ;  Antioch  ;  Nicaea ;  Lesbos ;  Aegina  ; 
Philippi;  Veii;  Thessaly;  Numidia;  Cilicia. 

ELEMENTARY. 

ENGLISH. 

Note. — Time :  Two  hours.  Write  carefully :  the  quality  of  your  English 
is  even  more  important  than  your  knowledge  of  the  books.  Plan  your 
answers  before  you  write  them,  and  look  them  over  carefully  after  you  have 
written  them.  Omit  either  3  or  4. 

1.  (Forty  minutes.)     Tell  in  the  first  person,  as  simply  and 
as  vividly  as  you  can,  the  story  of  The  Ancient  Mariner. 

2.  (One  hour.)     Explain  as  fully  as  you  can  the  differences 
between  the  life  of  knights  and  ladies  at  the  time  of  King 
Arthur  or  of  Ivanhoe,  and  the  life  of  people  in  London  in  the 
eighteenth  century — the   time   of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley,  of 
Goldsmith,  and  of  Dr.  Johnson. 

3.  (Twenty  minutes.)     What  does  Macaulay  mean  when  he 
says  that  Johnson  "  came  up  to  London  precisely  at  the  time 
when  the  condition  of  a  man  of  letters  was  most  miserable  and 
degraded  "  ? 

4.  (Twenty  minutes.)     Write  a  letter,  addressed  to  a  person 
with  whom  you  are  not  acquainted,  applying  for  a  position  and 
setting  forth  your  qualifications  for  it. 


Appendix  323 

HISTORY. 
GREECE  AND  ROME. 

Note. — Time :  Two  hours.  Note-books  with  a  teacher's  certificate  must 
be  handed  in  at  the  time  of  the  examination.  Give  dates  as  far  as  possible. 
The  University  provides  outline  maps. 

1.  Indicate   on  the  outline  map   the  places  important   in 
Greek  history  during  the  fourth  century  B.C.,  and  recount  the 
principal  events  connected  with  any  two  of  them. 

2.  Trace  with  the  aid  of  the  outline  map  the  history  of  the 
Roman  conquest  of  Gaul. 

GREECE.     (Answer  two  questions.) 

3.  Discuss  the  influence  of  the  Orient  upon  the  development 
of  Greek  civilisation. 

4.  Compare  the  Athenian  and  the  Roman  jury  courts. 

5.  Give  an  account  of  the  art  of  war  among  the  Greeks. 

6.  Write  a  description  of  comedy  at  Athens. 

ROME.     (Answer  two  questions.) 

7.  Describe  the  part  taken  by  the  equestrian  order  in  Roman 
finance  and  Roman  politics. 

8.  Give  an  account  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Romans  in  the 
lands  east  of  the  Euphrates. 

9.  In  what  ways  are  the  writings  of  Cicero  useful  to  the 
student  of  Roman  history  ? 

10.  Write  a  short  essay  on  Greek  philosophy  at  Rome. 

HISTORY. 

AMERICAN  AND  ENGLISH. 

Note. — Time :  Two  hours.  Note-books  with  a  teacher's  certificate  must 
be  handed  in  at  the  time  of  the  examination.  Give  dates  as  for  as  possible. 
The  University  provides  outline  maps. 

i.  Indicate  on  the  outline  map:  (i)  the  route  of  De  Soto; 
(2)  annexations  of  territory  to  the  United  States  during  the 

21  * 


324       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 

period  1800-1860;  (3)  the  routes  of  the  Pacific  railroads;  (4) 
the  position  of  three  places  at  which  battles  were  fought  during 
the  Hundred  Years'  War;  (5)  the  position  of  two  places  at 
which  treaties  or  peaces  were  made  during  this  war;  (6)  the 
position  of  two  battlefields  in  Ireland. 

2.  Write  briefly  on  the  following  topics :  Antinomian  Contro- 
versy ;   North-West  Ordinance ;  Thirteenth  Amendment ;  En- 
closures ;  Trimmer ;  Triennial  Act. 

AMERICA.     (Answer  two  questions.) 

3.  Describe  the  private  and  business  life  of  the  colonists  in 
the  seventeenth  century. 

4.  Discuss  the  Compromise  of  1850. 

5.  What  have  been  the  results  of  immigration  into  the  United 
States  since  1800? 

ENGLAND.     (Answer  two  questions.) 

6.  What  were  the  salient  features  of  the  constitution  of  Anglo- 
Saxon  England? 

7.  Give  an  account  of  the  political  career  and  the  writings  of 
Clarendon. 

8.  Describe  the  achievements  of  England  and   France  in 
India  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

7.  SOME  STATISTICS. 

These  are  chiefly  taken  from  Boston,  a  city  about  the  size  of 
Manchester,  and  long  known  as  an  intellectual  centre.  Its 
population  is  607,000.  Its  school  tax  is  3.06  cents  on  the 
dollar,  i.e.,  on  the  property  valuation  of  the  citizens.  Probably 
one-third  of  the  city  revenue  is  spent  on  education,  apart  from 
capital  expenditure  for  buildings.  The  number  of  day  school 
pupils  is  over  100,000,  the  High  Schools  containing  nearly 
7,500,  of  whom  some  1,800  graduate. 


Appendix 


325 


FROM  THE  OFFICIAL  SUPERINTENDENT'S  REPORT  FOR  1906. 
SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 

The  public  school  system  of  Boston  comprises  one  Normal 
School,  two  Latin  Schools  (one  for  boys  and  one  for  girls), 


PRIMARY       SCHOOLS    •  THREE       YEARS 


DIAGRAM  OF  BOSTON  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  SYSTEM. 
(This  is  not  absolutely  correct  now  :  the  system  is  being  modified.) 

nine  High  Schools,  the  Mechanic  Arts  High  School  (for  boys), 
sixty-four  Grammar  Schools,  seven  hundred  and  nineteen 
Primary  Classes,  seven  Special  Classes  one  hundred  and  seven 


326       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


Kindergartens,  one  School  for  the  Deaf,  five  Evening  High 
Schools,  thirteen  Evening  Elementary  Schools,  six  Evening 
Drawing  Schools,  a  special  school  on  Spectacle  Island,  fifty 
Manual  Training  Schools  and  forty  Schools  of  Cookery. 

REGISTRATION — 1906. 

Pupils  registered  in  the  public  schools  during  the  year  ending  ^oth  June, 

1906. 


Boys. 

Girls. 

Totals. 

DAY  SCHOOLS. 

Normal,  Latin  and  High 
Grammar        
Primary          
Kindergartens         .... 
Special  Schools  and  Special  Classes 

3,655 
26,301 

19,576 
3,7i6 

139 

4,800 

25,395 
17,858 

3,563 
126 

8,455 
5L696 
37,434 
7,279 
265 

Totals  —  Day  Schools 

53,387 

5L742 

105,129 

EVENING  SCHOOLS. 

High      

Elementary    
Drawing          ...... 

5,442 
7,856 

1,000 

4,859 
4,324 
195 

10,301 
12,180 

1,195 

Totals—  Evening  Schools 

14,298 

9,378 

23,676 

Grand  Totals  

67,685 

61,120 

128,805 

NUMBER  OF  PUPILS  TO  A  TEACHER. 

Kindergartens 

Grade  I 

Grades  II.-IX 

Ungraded  Classes 

Special  Classes 

High  Schools 

Mechanic  Arts  High  School       . 

Latin  School  (for  boys)  (three  upper  classes  30) 

Latin  School  (for  girls) 


25 

42 
50 
35 
15 
35 
»4 
35 
3° 


Appendix 


327 


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328       Impressions  of  American  Education  in   1908 


DISTRIBUTION  AS  TO  AGE  AND  TO  GRADE,  3oTH  JUNE,  1906. 


Grades. 

E 
• 

> 

e 

V 

> 

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3 

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$ 

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Girls. 

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71 

34 

73 

55 

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110 

71 

83 

59 

62 
42 

18 
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545 
366 

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32 

105 

128 

180 

181 

142 

104 

36 

911 

Advanced     \ 

Boys. 

_ 

_ 

__ 



i 

ii 

3i 

6.1 

64 

170 

Class         / 

Girls. 

— 



— 

— 

i 

16 

88 

III 

91 

310 

X 

Third-vear    \ 

Boys. 

— 



— 

— 

17 

86 

173 

185 

"3 

574 

§ 

Class         f 

Girls. 

— 



— 

— 

21 

149 

278 

176 

66 

690 

3 

CO 

Second-year"! 

Boys. 

— 



i 

40 

"5 

220 

182 

83 

45 

686 

•& 

Class         / 

Girls. 

— 



3 

3i 

178 

322 

219 

IOO 

45 

898 

K 

First-year     \ 

Boys. 



I 

29 

167 

330 

274 

132 

26 

8 

967 

Class         / 

Girls. 

— 

2 

48 

263 

529 

39» 

H7 

36 

3 

1,426 

Totals 

— 

3 

81 

501 

1,192 

1,476 

1,250 

780 

438 

5,721 

The  following  gives  the  expenditures  for  the  various  grades 
of  schools  : — 

NORMAL,  LATIN   AND   HIGH  SCHOOLS. 

Expenditures  made  by  the  School  Committee  and  the  School- 
house  Department  for  the  High  Schools  during  the  financial 
year  1905-6 : — 

Salaries  of  instructors $523,466  87 

Expenditures  for  text-books,  maps,  globes,  drawing 

materials,  stationery,  etc 29,217  69 

Salaries  of  janitors 33.826  60 

Fuel  and  light 22,129  58 


Rent,  furniture,  repairs,  etc.  . 

Total  expense  for  High  Schools 


$608,640  74 
44,560  86 


$653,201  60 


Appendix  329 

The  total  school  expenditure  for  1905-6  is  over  ,£900,000. 
The  official  diagram  shows  for  the  latest  year  (1903)  per  capita 
of  population  an  expenditure  of  over  $5.50,  and  of  $3  for 
$1,000  of  valuation.  It  is  difficult  to  turn  this  into  the  English 
rate  of  pence  in  the  £  rental,  but  reckoning  by  the  value  of 
a  Manchester  dwelling,  and  the  rent  thereof,  it  corresponds  to 
a  rate  of  nearly  nd.  in  the  ;£. 


STATE  OF  WISCONSIN. 
(Population  about  two  millions.) 

The  official  directory  names  254  high  schools  with  complete 
four-year  courses  ;  4  of  these  have  women  principals. 

There  are  64  city  superintendents,  i  being  a  woman,  171 
county  superintendents,  10  being  women.  One  of  these  Wis- 
consin High  Schools  is  in  a  rural  area  with  a  population  of 
i, 800;  it  has  175  pupils,  and  27  former  pupils  at  the  State 
University,  13  having  come  up  for  the  session  1908-9. 

The  total  expenditure  at  the  University  of  Wisconsin  for  the 
fiscal  year  closing  3oth  June,  1908,  was  $1,091,135.37,  of  which 
$514,221.95  was  spent  for  instruction,  $343,432.02  for  other 
current  expenses,  and  $233,466.40  for  permanent  improvements, 
including  apparatus  and  books.  (Note,  page  139.) 

UNITED  STATES. 
HIGH  SCHOOL  PUPILS,  1905-6. 

722,693  in  public  schools. 
101,755  in  private  schools. 

824,447  total,  nearly  i  per  cent,  of  the  population. 


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